Aprovechar el Sol
by speaks
Summary: When team Voltron finally pushes the Galra out of this sector of the galaxy, Allura surprises the paladins with a visit home for the first time since leaving Earth three years ago. Everyone fights over who gets to bring Keith home with them. Lance wins. Which would be fine, if Keith wasn't desperately trying NOT to be love with him.
1. Chapter 1

This is full-on klance burger with a hefty helping of klance fries, a klance side salad, and klance for dessert with the house-special klance sauce on top. enjoy ur meal, i made it with sweat blood and tears lol

Please note: Lance's family in this fic is based off the photo from the show. If you'd like a better picture of what these characters look like and which is which, I've labelled them here: .

This is set in the indeterminate future, roughly three years after leaving Earth.

* * *

 **Aprovechar el Sol**

* * *

As the seven humans that had traveled farther from Earth than any other looked on at their planet, the air between them buzzed like liquid light.

Lance's breath fogged the glass as he muttered under his breath. "I can't believe this," he was saying, more to himself to anyone else, "I reallyㅡI can't… This is happening. It's happening, right?"

"It's happening," Keith supplied bluntly, and turned to the swirling world of white, green, brown, and blue that hung against the glittering black backdrop of the Milky Way.

It was close enough that they couldn't see the whole planet at once from this lower-level viewing deck of the castleship where they were all currently crowded. Coran and Allura were standing respectfully at the back of the deck and exchanging excited whispers, Hunk was jumping up and down in place and shooting answers over his shoulder to Coran and Allura's whispered questions, Pidge was standing in a tightknit bunch with her father and brother by the glass with one hand stretched toward home, Shiro had his prosthetic arm folded over his natural one in deep content thought, and Lance had his entire body pressed to the window with a tear slowly trickling down the glass. The group was collectively beside themselves. Then there was Keith, who was actually standing off to the side, completely unsure how to feel about going home.

"And that's the African continent," Hunk was explaining to the two Alteans now, "which is where human life evolved in the first place, and the one above that isㅡwoah." Hunk paused and faltered as he scrunched his eyes in momentary confusion at Earth, then burst into laughter.

"What?" Allura and Coran asked as one equally confused unit.

"It's just," Hunk giggled, "we're flying at it upside-down. Sorry, okay yeah so the one _below_ Africa is Europe, and then to the left there Europe stretches out into Asiaㅡ"

Pidge, who had just tuned in, began to laugh raucously. "There is no upside-down in space, Hunk."

"On some level," Hunk defended, "I recognize that. But the world map is like, _super_ ingrained in my brain. It's hardwired! Cannot unsee!"

"Yeah, but think about it," Pidge went on with a shrug. "There's actually no reason at all for the world map of Earth to be oriented the way it is. What if chartmakers had drawn it the other way around? Then you'd be hardwired with that."

"Pidge," Hunk deadpanned. "Please have mercy. I still haven't digested the fact that we're actually going home, and you're breaking my very fragile brain-peace with your evil logic."

Matt Holt, not quite yet back to what Pidge often described as ' _his usual nerd-messiah self'_ but getting there, cut into the conversation with a tentative grin. "If that's hurting your brain, don't even get her started on the pointlessness of the rose compass."

"The rose compass is a comfortable lie!" Pidge insisted. "Did you know that the poles _switch places_ every couple thousand years?"

After that the conversation nose-dived into a mess, wherein Coran and Allura vied for answers to some of their more pressing Earth-questions and the rest of them argued over the inherent value of certain Terran schools of thought. As the rest of them moved on from geography into physics and philosophy, Keith edged over to Lance.

"Hey. You okay?" Keith asked dumbly. You'd think after three years Keith would've learned how to talk to the guy, and yet, the loudest paladin by far remained the biggest mystery. Lance sighed onto the glass and, for the first time since the castleship had exited the wormhole into the Solar System that had birthed them, tore his eyes from Earth. They slid to the left and landed on Keith, who felt faint little question marks popping in his brain like bubbles, tickling him with the possibility of answers.

"For once?" Lance said softly. "Yes."

 **. . * . .**

"Come on, come on, shake a leg!" Pidge shouted at Matt and her father, already halfway across the hangar to her lion. "It's almost six in the morning in Denver already and we have to catch mom before she goes to work!"

"We know, KP, but the regular humans need a _little_ more than five seconds to sprint across a mile long spaceship," Matt huffed back as he paused just inside the bay doors, with their tired father coming to a stop beside him, hands on his knees.

Passing them on the right, Hunk's lip trembled and he scrunched his face up in a vain attempt to keep the tears at bay as he gathered as many of them as he could reach into a messy hug. "I'll see you guys in a week, okay?"

Everyone nodded enthusiastically, Coran pretended not to cry, and then the group split apart toward their respective lionsㅡ

ㅡonly to come to a dead halt when Shiro cleared his throat and said, "Keith, you're with me."

For a brief moment, you could have heard an ant breathing in that hangar. Even Pidge stopped, and took a few steps back toward the group, eyes falling on Keith with sudden understanding. Keith met Shiro's eyes on instinct, because the way he gave that order was the same way he gave all other orders. Like this was just another mission. _In, out. Keith, you're with me._ Except this wasn't a mission. Keith clenched his jaw at the unreadable expression on Shiro's face and looked away, duly ignoring everyone else in the room as he began to stalk toward Red.

"Nope," he said glibly. "Thanks, but no."

Then the room exploded. How Pidge got across the hangar so quickly was beyond him, but suddenly there she was, standing between he and Red with the most earnest expression on her face. "Hey, come home with us," she pleaded, "I know you love the Sonoran desert but Denver's really not all that far from it, we could take a day and go visitㅡ"

"No way, my family is the smallest," Hunk complained, suddenly taking up Keith's entire field of vision as he tried to go around Pidge, "therefore I call dibs on Keith."

Pidge shoved Hunk back with her bony shoulder, earning a ' _yowch.'_ "I called dibs first, you ham."

Keith growled. "No one gets dibs!"

"Keith," Shiro said, and Keith had to consciously fight the urge to shove the leader's hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have phrased it that way. This isn't a mission, this is our home, and you're free to go wherever you want to go this week. I was just… I thought you might... "

"Yeah, so this is great and all, but I already called dibs, like…" Everyone looked at Lance in surprise, whose voice had been wistful and emotional all day and was now back to its usual playful drawl. He counted on his fingers then finished: "...ten months ago."

"Aw," Pidge and Hunk deflated.

Keith's eyebrow twitched. "What the hell are you talking about."

For once, Lance didn't rise to the bait. "Come on, you remember. We were talking out on the balcony on Taulderin after the jailbreak, and Iㅡ"

"Okay, okay, I remember!" Keith hastened to cut him off, earning amused and curious looks from everyone else. The last thing he needed right now was Lance supplying a play-by-play of that emotionally raw conversation to the room.

"Then you'll also remember promising to meet my family," Lance grinned cheekily. Keith burned. As much as he tried not to think about it, the night on the balcony had definitely happened, and the promise to meet Lance's family was definitely the least mortifying part of it. Lance had him cornered and he knew it. "Cool!" Lance brightened. "So, see you all next week, then. Let's go, mullet!"

Keith shot a worried look over his shoulder as Lance hauled him off across the hangar toward Blue, but no one offered him any assistance. In fact, they looked somewhat pleased at his distress. Shiro waved, and the group dissolved.

 **. . * . .**

It was true. In a moment of unbridled vulnerability, Keith had promised to meet Lance's family. But he'd done it without any real conviction. It was more of a ' _you're important to me and you almost just fucking died'_ kind of thing than a ' _this is a promise with the potential to actually be fulfilled'_ kind of thing. So despite the fact that yes, ten months ago he had nodded solemnly in response to Lance's plea, he had been woefully unprepared to actually follow through on it.

"Entering the atmosphere over Venezuela," Lance said, and his voice sounded strained. "God, it's so beautiful."

"What is?" Keith said from behind the pilot's seat, one hand on the back of Lance's chair as he eyed the dash. Boy was he full of dumb questions today. But the way Lance said it, it sure sounded like he was talking about something specific and not just Earth as a whole.

"The Atlantic," Lance answered, then let out a jubilant shout as the turbulation reached a tipping point and the air outside the cockpit ignited in a fireball of gaseous elements. "Activating cloak. Here we go! Blue, baby, take me home!"

The speed of the lion in juxtaposition with the geography of Earth made the planet seem so much tinier than it had been back in the days before Shiro's return. It was less than a minute after they'd entered the atmosphere over Venezuela that Lance was leaping out of his seat to point at the land mass below and proclaim it as Cuba. They slowed over a hair thin peninsula that had Lance choking up, and then passed it by.

"Um," Keith said. "I think we passed Varadero."

"What? We can't _land_ on Varadero," Lance snorted. "Do you want to set every military in the world on red alert? This cloak only shields us from radar; it won't stop locals from seeing us with their naked eyes if we set down in the middle of the city. We'd set off every car alarm on the coast! We'll have to sail over from Cayo Mono."

That was… true. And, honestly? Keith hadn't thought of that. He was used to living in the middle of the desert, where you could walk in one direction and die of old age before you even saw another living soul.

"Wait," he said suddenly as Blue's thrusters brought them down in a precise descent, toward the northern beach on an island about a thousandth the size of Cuba. "Isn't this island uninhabited? Did you even think this through? Where on Earth are we going to get a boat?" Lance snickered at the irony of that particular turn of phrase, then rose out of the pilot's seat to shove past Keith and descend mysteriously into the lower hatch without a word. "Lance." A few metallic snaps echoed out of the open hatch door. "Lance?" The lion lurched, and Keith's eyes flicked toward the window as the lion leaned toward the surf and spat something out.

Keith was still struggling to accept the fact that Blue had just vomited a small sailboat when Lance poked his head up through the hatch with a shit-eating grin.

"Sorry," Lance crowed, "what was that you were saying about boats?"

Down on the beach, Keith tried to focus on the fresh sting of the salty air, and not the fact that Lance was apparently familiar enough with boats to have built this from scrap, and experienced enough with sailing to have confidence enough to sail it despite having been away from the Atlantic for three years. Keith didn't even know what any of these ropes were for. Why were there so _many?_ The boat was only ten feet long, and rough and unassuming by modern standards, but still. It must have taken Lance months to build it. Now that he thought about it, Keith had definitely seen Lance spiriting away random pieces of junk from trade markets, and sneaking them aboard the castleship when he thought no one was looking. He'd always assumed that he was just messing around as usual, or on a mission for Pidge. Never in a million years would Keith have guessed about _this_.

Lance certainly seemed impatient to sail the rickety thing. The second they hit the sand on Cayo Mono Lance stripped out of his paladin armor, leaving it strewn in pieces behind him along with his shirt and shoes as he splashed straight into wandering surf, nevermind soaking his clothes straight through with saltwater, then launched himself up the side of the boat to get to work raising the sail.

Keith hummed and decided to rid himself of his own armor too, keeping only the bayard, which he tucked in his belt as Lance had done. It was after midday and the summer sun in Cuba was serious business. Aimlessly, he gathered up Lance's armor and deposited it back in Blue's jaws along with his own, then grabbed the two small packs they had packed for the week and slung them over his shoulder.

This one sack with a few changes of clothes and a bit of food was as far as Keith had planned for this homecoming. Lance, he'd been planning this trip since the day they left earth.

"You've really thought this through," Keith said, "haven't you?"

Lance paused with a length of rope looped over his shoulder. "Come'ere and help me, would you? This is a two-person job."

By the time they shoved off, the sun had moved an inch or two across the sky, but by the time they actually arrived at the main shore it had been a solid couple of hours. Keith was privately bored out of his mind as the wind pushed them slowly but surely across the thin slice of Atlantic that separated the little Cayo Mono and the long peninsula that was Varadero. He had no idea how Lance was just sitting there, taking it all in stride, with total control and patience. When this guy had a goal, he _really_ had a goal. But although he was quiet, Lance glowed with life under the summer sun. Every once in awhile he would lean over the boat excitedly to point out a patch of wildlife visible in the hidden reef below: a school of colorful fish, a turtle here or there, some smooth-gliding manta rays, and once, a docile shark.

Even when a large speedboat appeared on the horizon and turned toward them, revealing itself pretty swiftly as some kind of coast guard, Lance remained patient. He got to his feet and messed with the sail until they slowed. As the other boat approached Keith reached for his bayard instinctively, but Lance snatched it and threw it into a hidden compartment along with his own before the boat drew up alongside them.

Two men in uniform leaned over the rail and barked something at them in Spanish. Something about identification, if Keith had understood it right, which meant they were completely boned.

"Shut up and let me talk," Lance hissed under his breath, then launched into a Spanish conversation that Keith couldn't possibly hope to follow with his rudimentary comprehension of the language. Keith could only stand there looking exceedingly out of place while Lance went back and forth with the officers, then pulled two little cards out of his backpack and handed them over.

The officers took a quick look at them, then their demeanor pulled a one-eighty. They smiled brightly and exchanged a bit more dialogue with Lance, who was now laughing and gesturing animatedly at the sail and the sky. The officer on the left leaned out over the waves to pass the cards back to Lance.

" _Debemos aprovechar el sol_ _mientras dura,"_ the man grinned. " _Mañana vendrá una tormenta."_

" _Eso es_ hell-of-a _proverbio,"_ Lance replied, and the two officers burst into laughter before revving their engine and speeding away.

Keith caught one of the cards as Lance flicked it at him and returned to the sail. It was an ID. A Cuban ID. With _Keith's face_ on it.

"You've _reeally_ thought about this," Keith realized in amazement.

Lance said nothing.

 **. . * . .**

Varadero was objectively beautiful. Keith trailed behind Lance as they trudged up the beach into the sprawling coastal maze, taking it all in. The sapphire sky, the hot asphalt, the crying skybirds, the constant chatter of _humans_ that passed them by on the sidewalk. Keith couldn't understand most of the passing dialogue, but they were human, and Keith hadn't seen a human beyond the other paladins (and Matt and James) in three long years. He was surprised by the amount of emotion that welled up at the sight of them all. The buildings were full of character, and Keith would have stopped every five feet to inspect them if Lance was not steadily speeding up as they went along. By the time Lance came to a grinding halt thirty minutes later, Keith was almost running to keep up, and had to jerk to a stop to avoid colliding with his back.

Catching his breath, Keith followed Lance's eyes to the top of this shallow hill. Angular houses sat tucked into the sides of it at odd angles, and trees obscured most of the road on its winding way up. Keith watched Lance's eyes follow the curve of the road, all the way to the top, where a brick red house stood out in stark contrast against the green of the trees about a hundred yards away, the windows reflecting molten gold from the sun as it sank toward the horizon.

"Is that it?" Keith asked. _Again with the dumb questions,_ he chided himself. _Of course this is it._ "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go up."

But as he pushed past Lance on the sidewalk, he finally saw Lance's broken expression. Gone was the wistful sap from the viewing deck of the castleship, gone was the triumphant goof of the pilot seat, and gone was the patient sailor with his eyes on the shore. He said he was okay this morning, and Keith, ever the socially-inept tool, had taken his word for it. But it was stupidly obvious now.

Lance was terrified.

"Keith, what if they hate me?" he breathed, and promptly launched into a flailing ramble. "What if they don't believe my story? What if they think I'm crazy, or what if the Garrison has us listed as fugitives, or what if ㅡ what if something happened to them while I was gone, and they'reㅡ they'reㅡ What if they don't even live here anymore?"

"Lance," Keith supplied helpfully, and rested a hand on one of Lance's shoulders. This seemed to calm him a little. "First of all, they're going to believe you. You have a trillion pixels of photographic evidence on an alien computer in one pocket, and a physics-defying weapon in the other. Besides, sharpshooter," he added, and Lance blinked in shock at the switch in Keith's voice from teasing to soft. "I'm pretty sure they still live here." Keith pointed up the hill as way of explanation, where just now, a little girl had opened the front door to step out onto the patio. She held her hand over her eyes as she looked down the hill at them, then let out an inhuman shriek that sounded something like ' _Lance.'_

Keith stumbled as Lance gripped at his shirt. "Gabi? _Oh my god, Gabriela,_ she got so _big, Keith_."

The dark-haired girl (who would be about nine now, if Keith was remembering correctly) had started sprinting down the drive, but thought better of it and spun around to scream something incomprehensible back into the open doorway, whereupon several other voices joined the fray. "Go on," Keith chuckled, and gently pried Lance off his shirt and gave him a shove in the right direction. "I'll catch up." He was privately grateful that Lance had dragged him along, and privately glad he didn't have to spend the week on Earth alone, but he wasn't obtuse enough not to realize he should let Lance have some alone time with his family before intruding on their reunion.

Lance had other plans, apparently.

"Oh no you won't," he said, and just like they they were sprinting up the road. Or rather, Lance was sprinting and Keith was trying to decide whether to break Lance's grip on his wrist or just let himself be dragged along. In the end he took too long to decide, so he was right there when Gabi crashed into Lance and sent them all crashing onto the wet lawn. The rest was a blur of Spanish, and the only thing Keith caught was a confused " _¿Qué es eso?"_ from Gabi when Lance dug the bayard out of his pocket where it'd been digging into his side.

" _Mijo,"_ someone sobbed from the doorway, and Lance rolled out from under Gabi to launch himself toward his mother and father and younger brother (Benito, Keith remembered suddenly, who was probably around eleven now). Keith rose to his feet as the family embraced and conversed in broken tear-stained Spanish. Awkwardly brushing the grass from his shirt and pants, he felt that 'out of place' feeling make a bold resurgence.

But then, like a sunray through a storm, Lance broke into bright, crisp English. "It's true," he blurted, "I'll show you! Oh man, you're gonna love this, Ben. Keith, throw me my bayard?"

The attention of Lance's family fell on Keith then like a spotlight. Waving at them awkwardly, Keith kicked the discarded blue bayard up from the grass with the toe of his boot and caught it before tossing it Lance's way, who immediately transformed it into his gun with a flash of blue light. The chaos that followed was immediate and all-encompassing. The kids clamored for a look at the gun while his mother began asking some much more frantic questions, presumably about the fact that her son was holding an alien weapon like it was a comfortable extension of his arm. His father reached around her waist and pulled her close, unable to say much of anything himself as he watched his son activate and deactivate his bayard a few times for Gabi and Ben until the 'woah' factor had abated somewhat.

"Keith, show them yours!" Lance called out once the shock of the blue bayard had worn off.

"Yeah, show us yours!" Gabi exclaimed in English, the first one to take Lance's very unsubtle hint, and she and Ben went scampering across the lawn toward the intruder.

"Uh," Keith said intelligently. "Yeah, okay." He pulled the red bayard from its holster and held it safely above the kids' heads before activating its full potential.

"Holy shit!" Ben shouted at the freshly materialized sword, and earned a halfhearted scolding from his father before the man turned back to Lance.

"Come inside, _mijo_ ," he said, and Keith felt an odd sort of warmth spreading in his stomach at the fact that everyone was suddenly speaking English. There was no reason to do that at all, save for Keith's presence. It was weird, knowing that. He didn't know what to do with the information. "It's clear we have a lot to talk about."

Keith would have waited outside if Gabi hadn't seized his hand and pulled him toward the door after the disappearing McClains. "Can I hold your sword?" Ben whispered on his other side, pointing at the weapon.

Keith immediately retracted it and tucked it away at his belt, but the ' _no'_ got caught on the way out. "Sure," he whispered instead. "Later, I'll show you how."

The sparkle of hero-worship that flooded Ben and Gabi's eyes made his heart melt. _This is thin ice you're treading,_ he thought to himself as Ben ran ahead to blab to Lance that Keith had just promised to teach him sword fighting. Loving Lance was one thing. As hard as it was, Keith knew he could keep it under control, could contain it indefinitely, could keep the cellar door held shut against that tornado for as long as Lance continued to let him. But it was a delicate balancing act, and it had been slowly tipping over the past year, ever since the night on Taulderin that Lance had so tactlessly mentioned this morning. Keith was barely hanging onto that balance, now, and if he let himself fall in love with Lance's family too then he didn't stand a chance in hell.

* * *

 **Notes:**

Everyone has that one friend whose family carves a place for you at the table. That's always been my family, for all me and my sibling's friends. Now, admittedly, my family is nowhere near as healthy as Lance's. We're about as broken as they come. But, Lance's mother in this story is 100% based on my own mother. She opened her doors for anyone at everyone at all hours of the day, no matter the cost, taking in many people when they were in need over the years. It was never easy for her, but she did it. I have so much respect for her enormous heart, and owe my knowledge of unconditional love completely to her. Yeah, I know this is just fanfic, but I take all my writing really seriously.

So this story is dedicated to my mother, the neighborhood mom for all the wandering Keiths. The world could use more people like her.


	2. Chapter 2

Gabi led Keith by the hand through the dense, colorful house to the kitchen in the very back.

He didn't even try to stop himself from drinking the room like a dying man in a desert: he raked his eyes over every photo on the mantle, the shoes by the door, the swimsuits hung on a rack where coats should have been, the painting of what looked like Machu Pichu that hung over the couch, the stairwell that snaked up into the hidden second story, where Lance's bedroom lie presumably in wait for his return. They walked past it all down a hall, and emerged into the kitchen. Here Lance's parents had pushed him down into a chair, and hovered over him on each side, asking him questions as he dug a fork into a bowl of what looked like brown rice and fried eggs. As Keith looked at it, Lance's mother (Jocelyn was her nameㅡLance was a bonafide mama's boy who never shut up about how great his mother was, so Keith _definitely_ remembered that one) broke away to grab another bowl from beside the stove and press it into Keith's hands.

Keith was about to say _'no thanks'_ even though he was pretty hungry, but one look from Lance's mother shot the words from his mouth. This was the face of the happiest woman on Earth. Her eyes shone and her mouth curved upward in a perpetual smile, and as Keith accepted the bowl, she pressed one hand lovingly to his cheek and said, "Thank you for bringing my baby home."

Lance snorted through a mouthful of rice. "Let's get one thing straight: _I_ brought _him_ here."

"This is so much to take in," Lance's father, Sal, said, and took the seat beside Lance tiredly. "So you two are soldiers? Is that it? Exactly how serious is this war you've been fighting in?"

Lance and Keith exchanged a brief, serious glance that didn't go unnoticed by Sal or Jocelyn. "Later," Lance said quietly. "Not in front of the kids." Luckily, Gabi and Ben were too distracted by poking at Keith's dormant bayard to hear the turn of the conversation. It was clear his parents wanted to push, and Keith couldn't blame them, but Lance changed the subject before they could. "Where are Marco and Laura?"

"Marco lives in Havana now with Jessica," Jocelyn said, and Keith felt himself being ushered into the seat beside Lance by her. "They got married not long afterㅡafter you disappeared, Lance."

"They got married?!"

"They had a baby!" Ben shouted, and Lance launched out of his seat, sending the rice bowl clattering sideways into Keith's.

"Oh my god, oh my god, they had a baby?! What's hisㅡherㅡname? Call him! Call him right now!"

"I got it," Gabi said, and ran to grab a cell phone off the counter by the fridge to start dialing.

"Laura's in the States," Sal explained while Lance snatched the ringing phone from Gabi's hands.

Lance's eyebrows scrunched in confusion. "What? Why?"

"She joined the Garrison after you left," Ben said.

"Whㅡ _Marco? O-oye, soy yo…"_ A brief pause where Lance cradled the phone to his face and bit his lip. _"Sí, en serio. Volví._ "

"Sorry Lance knocked over your food," Jocelyn said over Keith's shoulder, and he found his bowl being replaced by a new one. "He's always been a bit of a spaz, though I'm sure you know that well enough by now." Her eyes crinkled fondly at him, and Keith found himself desperately wanting to ask her why no one had a problem with him being here. Wasn't he intruding on an intimate occasion? "You're certainly mysterious," she observed with a teasing lilt to her voice.

"I'm... sorry?" What was he even supposed to say to that.

" _Dios mío bueno_. Lance," she called over her shoulder, "I love him."

Lance, who had just hung up the phone, laughed and sneered, "Yeah, he's alright. Now someone explain why the _shit_ Laura went to the Garrison instead of med school."

" _Modales_ , _Leandro_ , and she did it because of you. The day you went missing there were about a dozen UFO sightings across southwest America, and a bunch of weird radio interference, among otherㅡwell, you'll have to ask Laura. She's spoken of nothing else in the last three years. The US government wrote it off as military testing, but later, we found out you had been… Well, the Garrison listed you and your friends as runaways, and wouldn't publicly acknowledge any relation between your disappearance and the weird things that happened that day. We didn't know what to think; of course we didn't believe in aliens so we had to assume the military was being honest. But Laura…"

"Saw straight through the bullshit," Lance sighed. "Keith," he said, and Keith turned automatically toward the despair in his voice. "Keith, my sister pulled a Pidge on me."

The edge to that information cut through the tenderness of the reunion. So Laura, the sibling Lance had always gone on about the most, the one who'd been his best friend since birth, had dropped her entire life to enroll in the Galaxy Garrison on the thinnest hope of finding her lost brother. For the last few months, Lance had been talking about how she was probably in a prestigious med school program by now. There went that...

For the hundredth time that day, Keith wished he had _anything_ helpful to say.

"I'll call the Garrison now and have them send her home for a family emergency," Sal said as he rose from his chair on the other side of Lance. "Don't worry, I won't tell them anything about you, I'll say it's about one of us or something. I've seen superhero movies," he chuckled, "I know how this works."

"It's more of a Power Rangers thing!" Lance called after his dad.

"I'd say it's more of a Star Wars thing, really," Keith quipped without thinking, and then had to spend the next few minutes responding to the eager pesterings of both Gabi and Ben, while Lance rested his chin on one hand and watched them with soft eyes and a softer smile. Keith couldn't help flushing as he dutifully explained what it was like to travel via wormhole. He knew those soft eyes were for his little brother and sister, but still, having them trained at him was like having a pulsar flash its radiation straight through his body. He could feel his blood turning to jelly as he spoke.

Sal cleared his throat in the doorway. "They're going to notify her," he said. "Since it's summer, there should be plenty of flights to and from Havana from the Phoenix airport. Hopefully she'll get here by morning."

" _Gracias, Papá,_ " Lance said, then cleared the bubble from his throat and rose from the table. "So!" he brightened. "Who wants to see pictures of aliens?"

As expected, Ben and Gabi exploded with excitement, and began to hurriedly tug Lance back into the hallway toward the living room. Keith lingered on the last bite of his rice before standing, but then realized with a jolt that he'd been left alone in the room with Lance's mother. She was looking at him with that expression again, that absurdly happy glow, and he was weak to it. He'd never really known a mother beforeㅡnot just his own, he'd never known any mother. Like it or not, Keith had never had many friends, and those he did manage to find had never brought him home. So to say he was lost for words with this woman was an understatement of gross magnitude. She was like a living cryptid.

Jocelyn seemed to read some of the anxiety on his face, because her expression softened even more as she closed the distance between them. "Lance said you two would be here on Earth for only a week," she said. Keith didn't remember Lance mentioning that part, but then again, there had been whole novels of Spanish that he'd missed before everyone switched to English for his benefit. "Will you be staying with us all week too?"

Keith averted his eyes. Was that a trick question? "It was Lance's idea," he defended.

That earned a bubbly giggle from the woman, and Keith found himself looking back at her with eyebrows raised. "Of course it was," she sighed happily, then lightly slapped a hand across Keith's chest at his expression. "Oh hush, I can see the gears turning in your head a mile a minute and it's giving me a migraine. There's no need to be a stranger, Keith. No need. Any friend of Lance's is family of ours."

Keith spluttered over the odd inflection she'd placed on the word 'friend,' but wasn't afforded any time to respond before the woman tugged him into a firm embrace. He stiffened at first, but quickly succumbed to her tidal wave of joy.

There was always going to be a part of Keith that was accustomed to loneliness. The only blood relative he'd ever known was his father, and after his death eight years ago Keith had faced life virtually alone. The first true friend he ever had was Shiro, but even that was more of a mentorship than a friendship, and that was before the Kerberos mission. But… ever since he followed his instinct to the Blue Lion and set off the chain of events that led him to Voltronㅡto his friendsㅡhe'd grown comfortable with having people around him that cared whether he lived or died. He'd grown used to having a family. So suffice it to say that as happy as he'd been to return to Earth, he had _not_ been eager to spend the week alone. To have the universe remind him that when all was said and done, he was still an orphan. That he'd still lost his father. That he was still left on Earth by an alien mother. Hell, he could have been born in space for all he knew, and dropped at his father's doorstep by a mother too invested in the Blade of Marmora to raise a half-human child. Earth might not even _be_ his true birthplace.

And he hadn't even known where he was going to fly Red when they got to Earth to spend the week here. He'd lived with his father in San Antonio, Albuquerque, and El Paso. After his death Keith enlisted, and after graduating the school in Houston he was sent off to the Garrison base south of Tucsonㅡthat is, until he called it quits and fled deep into the Sonoran desert to figure out what the fuck had been calling him to that red wasteland if not the Garrison. In the end, of course, he'd found it, and never looked back.

Jocelyn said nothing when he laid his forehead down on her shoulder and heaved one long, shuddering, heart-cleansing breath. The Sonoran Desert wasn't really his home. Keith didn't _have_ a home. But as Jocelyn wrapped her arms tightly around him and refused to let go, resulting in the longest hug Keith had ever received, he came to understand that someone was finally offering him one.

. . * . .

When the two of them entered the living room, they found the other four crowded on the couch around Lance's handheld Altean computer. Sal was on his right and Ben on his left, and Gabi in his lap holding the computer in her hands and flicking through the photos with impunity. "Go back, go back," Ben complained, and fought for control of the screen.

They'd been looking at pictures of alien landscapes and selfies from space and portraits of people they'd rescued for over an hour when Lance switched gears. He plucked the phone out of Gabi's hands to pause on one particular picture. "So that's my lion, Blue."

"You parked _that thing_ on Cayo Mono?" Sal said, absolutely flabbergasted.

"Yyyep," Lance said proudly.

"It's hidden by a cloaking device," Keith explained. "There's no danger of her being seen, unless someone actually goes onto the island and walks right up to her."

"So, it's a spaceship, but it's like… alive?" Gabi wondered.

"Yeah, exactly, Gabi."

"Is it magic?" Ben asked.

 _"Por supuesto que no, estúpido,"_ Gabi snapped at him, and Lance immediately squished her cheeks with his hand and gaspedㅡa noise of pure shock and sadness.

 _"¿Qué pasó con mi pequeña hada?"_ Lance said sullenly, and for the first time since they'd arrived Keith glimpsed the sorrow that had briefly overcome Lance at the bottom of the hill.

" _Lance_ , I'm _nine_. I know those games we used to play were fake."

With a big sigh, Lance released her face."Yeah, maybe they were," he said. "And yeah, magic's not real… fairies might not be real, or dragons, or wizards. But what if I were to tell you that there was science so advanced that it would look just like magic to you?" This gave Gabi pause, and she glanced down at the blue bayard sticking out of Lance's pocket. "Exactly," he said, "like my bayard. Like my lion."

"And you pilot one too, is that correct?" Jocelyn prompted gently, nudging Keith with her elbow. He jumped, realizing he'd been leaning against the wall in the archway to the living room and staring for _far_ longer than was socially disregardable.

"Yeah," Keith answered, and moved out of the doorway toward the empty rocking chair by the fireplace. "I pilot Red. She's theㅡah, the fast one." He faltered as he realized Lance was showing his family a picture as he spoke, presumably of Keith or Red, or Keith piloting Red.

 _"Woah,"_ Gabi and Ben chorused.

Lance handed the computer over to the two of them and leaned back, eyeing his father, "You okay, _pap_ _á_?"

"Yeah," the man replied softly. "It's just… you've gone and grown up while you were away."

Lance rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I'm so sorry, you know. For doing this to you guys… butㅡ"

"There's always a but," Jocelyn sighed from her perch on the arm of the couch.

"The universe needs me. Me and Keith and the other paladins, we're… there's this hyper-advanced defensive weapon that one of the planets on the good side of the war developed, and it's sort of… Keith, how do I explain this?" Keith blinked in surprise when Lance looked to him for help, begging with not only his mouth but his eyes as well. As if Keith was somehow the one that was good with words. That was definitely Lance. But he understood why Lance was suddenly lost. How do you summarize a ten thousand year war in a way that won't devastate your family and make them fear for your life? How do you summarize Voltron?

Taking pity on Lance, Keith accepted the reigns. "Instead of running on electricity or gasoline or something, imagine that this weapon runs on, like… life force."

"Seriously? Man, you weren't kidding about the Star Wars thing," Ben said in awe.

"Yeah. It's one of a kind, and it's just about the only thing that can stop the Galra. The thing is, it's made up of these five separate pieces."

"The lions?" Gabi interjected.

"The lions," Keith confirmed. "And the lions areㅡlike Lance saidㅡthey're basically sentient. And they're connected to each of our life forces the same way we're connected to Earth right now via gravity. So only I can pilot Red." Lance grinned cheekily at that, presumably thinking of those couple months when Shiro had been missing, when Lance hadin fact piloted Red, while Keith piloted Black and Allura filled in for Lance with Blue.

Yeah. It had gotten… convoluted, there, for awhile.

"And Lance is the only one who can pilot Blue," Keith lied dutifully. No need to go into complexities right now. This was already complex enough to explain to Lance's poor family without trying to dissect why Red, who was easily the most volatile and picky of all the lions, had more or less insisted on Lance as Keith's substitute. Or why Blue had been gracious enough to let Red borrow her paladin, for that matter.

For once, Lance let that landmine lie. "Does that make sense?" Lance jumped in, shooting Keith a grateful smile. He'd sure been doing a lot of that today. "The five of usㅡShiro and Hunk and Pidge and Keith and Iㅡwe're the only ones in the universe who can use this weapon, andㅡ"

"And the rebels need the weapon to win," Sal sighed. "We understand, Lance, we're just…"

"This means you're gonna leave again, right?" Gabi sniffled, and Lance uttered the softest series of sounds Keith had _ever_ heard as he brushed a stray tear away from her eye before it could fall.

"I'm sorry," Lance muttered, and kept on saying it as the four of them pressed in around him, as if just by hugging him they could keep him grounded to the Earth forever. Keith caught Jocelyn's eye by accident, and when she opened her mouth to speak he knew he was about to be beckoned over. Before the panic had fully risen in Keith's chest, however, he was spared.

The front door to Keith's left, on the other side of the fireplace, shot open so fast that it ricocheted off the opposite wall and crashed back into the man that had entered the room like a freight train. For a split second of insanity, Keith thought it was Hunk. But it wasn't; the man was simply the same size and the same level of intensity. _Marco,_ Keith's brain supplied helpfully, _the one who plays guitar._

"Lance, you _fucking_ _asshole!"_ Marco shouted, and his voice was so hoarse and his dark face tinted so auburn that Keith wondered if he hadn't been shouting the entire way over. "How could you just _ghost_ us like that? Your own family! We thought you were _dead_ , Lance, we had a funeral for you two _fucking_ years ago! And Laura, she thinks you were _abducted by aliens._ She dropped out of school to look for you, you insensitive piece ofㅡ"

" _Marco_ ," their father barked, and for a split second even Keith was afraid. That one sharp word was enough to give Marco pause, to actually look at Lance, who had slipped out from under Gabi and rose now on shaky feet. His lip trembled.

"Lance?" Marco broke, and it was clear his anger had been a front all along.

" _Imissedyousomuch_ ," Lance sobbed in one breath, and launched himself at his older brother so hard that despite his size, he stumbled and had to catch himself on the doorjamb. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

"Where did you go?" Marco asked brokenly. "I thought you were dead, _hermanito._ I thought…"

A tiny giggle shattered the tension in the room. Keith tore his eyes from the two brothers as a small child toddled into the house past Marco's legs, stumbling a bit and catching himself as he went, paying no mind to the somber atmosphere. He giggled a few garbled words that sounded like they might have passed for Spanish and went straight for Ben and Gabi where they sat on the couch. Yet another family member entered the house (Mark's wife Jessica, Keith imagined) and looked at Lance like he was a ghost. But Lance was preoccupied with the toddler that was now poking at the Altean computer that Gabi was still holding.

A precious silence descended on room as Lance came to life and dropped to his knees. He gave the baby a watery smile as he said, " _Hola_ , _pequiñin_ ," and held his arms out wide.

Taking pity on his teammate for the umpteenth time today, Keith beckoned Marco and Jessica over to explain the situation while Lance made friends with his surprise new nephew. Before Keith could say anything, Lance sniffed, "What's his name, Mark?"

Marco gave his little brother a long, unreadable look. Keith had almost decided Mark wasn't going to respond at all when he sighed and said, " _Lance_ , okay? His name is Lance."

"Oh," Lance breathed, and Little Lance grabbed his uncle's lip and pulled.

By the time Keith had finished explaining the war and Voltron and Lance's place between the two to Marco and Jessica, Big Lance had become best friends with Little Lance, and Keith had realized they would have to endure this emotional turmoil one more time when Laura arrived in the early hours of the morning.

Hours later that night they had all settled into various nooks and crannies in the room and Lance had bugged his brother into getting his guitar out of the car to play something. ( _I know you have one in the car_ , Lance had insisted, _you always have one in the car_ , to which Jessica had snickered and replied, _he has two in the car._ ) Little Lance had fallen asleep on Big Lance's lap on the rocking chair, Marco and Jessica had taken up residence on the floor, Sal and Jocelyn were resting on each other on one end of the couch, and Keith had somehow found himself with Gabi and Ben each resting on one of his arms. (This development clearly amused Lance, but Keith was pretty sure the two kids were just competing for his attention so they could play with his bayard.)

They'd spent the evening in a bizarre battle of storytelling. Everyone wanted to know about Lance and Keith's adventures, but Lance wanted to know what had been going on with his family while he was gone. After awhile it became like a sport, batting the conversation back and forth. Lance and Keith would describe Coran and Allura. Ben and Gabi would talk about their friends at school. Lance and Keith would talk about the liberation of the Balmera. Marco and Jessica would talk about their vacation to Florence. It was weird, but after an hour, it became strangely normal. And in the middle of it all, Keith was consistently surprised to find questions and concerns directed his way.

"I still can't believe you named him after me," Lance said for the fiftieth time, somewhere near two in the morning when the conversation had taken its longest lull yet.

Marco went on picking at the strings melodically. "Yeah, and I can't believe you became a space crusader," he deadpanned. "It's a crazy universe. How you doin' over there, Ranger Red? You've been awfully quiet for the last hour or so."

"It's been a long day," Keith supplied. To say Keith felt drained would be like saying Pidge liked computers. This was about as much emotion as he could handle for an entire lifetime.

"That it has," Jessica sighed. "That it has. Marco?"

Marco also sighed, and followed Jessica's gaze to their two year old, who looked cozy enough to sleep forever in Lance's lap. "Aw, no," Lance whined, "don't take him."

"A two year old needs to sleep in a bed, _mijo,_ " Jocelyn chided with amusement. "You can't play with him while he's sleeping anyway."

"We'll come back bright and early tomorrow," Marco said. "You're here all week, right? I'll take off work for a family emergency, I'm sure they'll understand."

"Yeah, okay," Lance said, but it was still hard to watch him give up the sleeping baby.

Once Marco and Jessica and Little Lance had gone, Jocelyn rose and clapped her hands sharply enough to rouse Ben and Gabi, who had been lightly dozing on either side of Keith. " _Bueno_ , time to brush our teeth and put on our pajamas. _Vamonos, monos_."

Albeit with a bit of grumbling, the two younger kids slid off the couch and disappeared into the hallway toward the staircase. Lance hopped up from the rocking chair and made his way over to kick Keith off the couch and mess around under the cushions. Keith finally understood when the base of the couch made a small clicking noise and separated, then stretched out into a bed. "We used to share rooms," Lance explained as he fixed the tin sheets and replaced all the pillows, "but I'm sure Ben and Gabi each have their own room now that Laura moved out. I wouldn't wanna put them out. This is cool, right?"

"S'fine," Keith mumbled. Under normal circumstances, he would have needled Lance endlessly over the less-than-five-star sleeping conditions. Under normal circumstances Lance wouldn't have spent the entire day being nice to Keith. But these weren't normal circumstances. So instead of bickering, Keith simply flopped onto his back beside Lance, who crawled up onto the freshly-made bed and rested his hands behind his head against the wall.

There was a long minute of silence between them, where they both listened to the distant sounds of Lance's family going through their evening routines upstairs.

It'd been so loud for so long today, and now that it was finally silent he was drowning in his own head. "They're nice," Keith finally said when he couldn't stand it anymore. Lance looked over at him softly, and _oh_ , maybe that soft look in the kitchen earlier had been for Keith after all. _Go ahead and shove that in the deepest recess of the memory well with the rest of the Confusing Lance Baggage._

"They're the best," Lance sighed, and Keith didn't have to look at them to know which expression Lance had on his face. It was only the first of seven days home, but he missed them already. "And as long as we're on that subject," Lance added playfully, "I should _prooo-_ bably mention that they've as good as adopted you now. I left you alone with my mom on purpose, you know. I know her so well. Come on, you _gotta_ tell me. What did she say? She straight up asked to adopt you, didn't she?" Lance snickered as he tried to keep his voice down. "God, she was always doing that to my friends, it was so funny. She was like the neighborhood mom."

Keith sat up slowly. The spark of pure unadulterated panic that had lanced through his chest (no pun intended, shut _up_ Hunk) when Lance said the word _'adopted'_ ebbed slowly as Lance spoke, until all that was left was a thin film of surprise. Keith really should have known. Lance was always more clever than Keith gave him credit for, and one of these days it was going to be the death of him.

"You planned that," Keith accused. "You knew if I showed up with you they wouldㅡ"

"Forever associate your grumpy face with the tsunami of happiness and endorphins that came along with finding out their beloved son was still alive? You mean that? Yes, I planned that."

"You are the actual worst."

"I'm choosing to hear 'best.' And actually," Lance said with a bite of amusement, "I'm shocked that you even made it this far. I was totally convinced you were gonna high tail it the second somebody started to cry, and come back at the end of the week just to catch a ride back to the castleship in Blue."

Keith scowled. He'd been toying with that idea all day long, but no way in _hell_ was he going to give Lance the satisfaction of knowing that. "I promised you I'd meet them, didn't I?"

"Yeah," Lance chuckled. "You did."

"Wait a minute," Keith said, a less-than-pleasant idea suddenly occurring to him. _I was totally convinced you were gonna high tail it,_ he'd said."Were you _testing_ me?"

Lance grimaced. "N-no…"

Keith glared. His scowl deepened into a pout as he realized Lance's tentative _'no'_ meant fuck-all. He had totally been testing him. "Did I pass?" Keith grumbled, almost inaudibly.

"Yes," came a girl's voice from the hallway behind them.

"Gabi!" Lance yelled, and both Gabi and Ben started to cackle when a couch pillow hit the wall nearest to where they were hiding.

Lance was reaching for a second pillow when Jocelyn and Sal peered around the corner too, looking more properly ashamed of themselves than Gabi and Ben sounded. "I don't think you have a grumpy face, Keith," Jocelyn smiled. "Sleep well, boys. We're making a big breakfast in the morning, so if you need to eat when you wake up, make it small."

"Okay. Love you," Lance answered warmly. Keith spent a moment fuming with jealousy over the seamless ease with which these people had just switched from throwing stuff at each other and shouting, to smiling and saying _'I love you'_ like it was just the simplest thing in the world. "So," Lance said once they were actually, truly alone. "We _could_ switch into our pajamas and go to sleep, but I'm not really sleepy yet. Pretty wired, actually."

"Same," Keith admitted. Sure he was suffering from mental and emotional exhaustion, but he had spent most of the day sedentarily. His muscles were used to a thousand percent more exercise, and if Lance had something in mind to blow off this excess physical energy so his brain could get some sleep, then Keith was all ears.

Butㅡ

As Keith stood at the edge of an abandoned beach due east of Lance's neighborhood, watching the other boy as he sprinted toward the waves in nothing but a pair of trunks, leaving shallow footprints in the silver moonlit sand, Keith considered that maybe this was a bad idea.

* * *

 **Spanish-English translations:**

"Marco? O-oye, soy yo… Sí, en serio. Volví." - "Marco? H-hey, it's me… Yes, for real. I'm back."

"Dios mío bueno." - "Oh my good god."

"Modales, mijo." - "Manners, son."

"Por supuesto que no, estúpido." ㅡ "Of course not, stupid."

"¿Qué pasó con mi pequeña hada?" ㅡ "What happened to my little fairy?"

"Hola, pequiñin." ㅡ "Hi, little guy."


	3. Chapter 3

The trailing pair of footprints turned into an untrackable mess as Keith meandered down the beach in Lance's wake. The weather out here was in the low seventies, and there was a sporadic breeze blowing in off the sea that filled the night air between each splashing wave with a susurrus of palm fronds from the trees that separated the sand from the city. Keith let the sounds and smells wash over him, chipping away at the tension that this rollercoaster of a day had left in his shoulders. This place was not all that different from the Sonoran Desert after all. Summer nights in southwest Arizona were a quiet and rhythmic affair as well.

Thinking about it now, the pervasive cicada hum came back to him easily. The calls of unseen owls as they prowled the night for prey juxtaposed against the distant laughter of coyotes, bone-chilling in the way the sometimes sounded like crying children, but comforting in the way that reminded Keith he wasn't the only thing alive that far out in the mountains. But unlike Cuba, there wasn't much in the way of foliage to be rustled by stray winds. The plants there were fat and thick and low to the ground, dry and dead on the outside but full of water and life if you knew where to look. Saguaro cactuses were unique not only to the Sonora, but to Earth as well. Nowhere in all their travels had Keith seen another plant quite like it. As he thought of them, an odd twist tugged at his gut. He struggled to identify it. Nostalgia? Homesickness? Longing?

"You gonna keep staring or you gonna come swimming?"

Keith started. Had he been staring at Lance this whole time?! _God dammit, Keith, get a grip!_

"Water's perfect," Lance said, and shot his arms out to splash Keith, who was standing just near enough to fall victim. Luckily, Keith had caved and worn swim trunks as well. He hadn't packed any (having not been planning on Cuba as his destination) but Lance had thought of that as well and packed them for him. He'd thought of freaking _everything_ , apparently. "The coast guards said it was going to rain, tomorrow, and it looks like they were right. So we better make the most of it now since we probably won't get to swim here again before we leave. Trust me," Lance laughed, "you _won't_ wanna go in this ocean when it's storming."

Following the direction of Lance's gaze, Keith eyed the horizon out the direction they'd sailed from Cayo Mono. Near the horizon, the glittering arm of the Milky Way vanished behind a veil of gathering darkness more black than the rest of the night sky, and as Keith looked, lightning flashed. The clouds lit up from below in a split second of spiderwebbed light, illustrating the depth of the gathering storm.

Lance was right. That shit looked intense.

But apparently Keith took too long to get in the water, because one second he was looking at the storm, and the next he was hurtling through the air and falling through an incoming wave. He burst to the surface, spewing water since he hadn't had enough warning to close his mouth before Lance threw him.

"Was that necessary?" Keith snapped.

"Abso-fucking-lutely!" Lance laughed. "You've been way more uptight than usual today. You need to cut _loose_ , boiii. Let the sound of those Royal Palms _soothe_ your emo soul. Let those Cuban waves waGH!" Keith never knew what he should let the Cuban waves do to him, because he had kicked out Lance's knees from behind and sent him flailing into one.

Keith realized he had possibly made a mistake when Lance didn't immediately reemerge. _Yep,_ he thought as Lance rocketed out of the water behind him and tackled him into the next oncoming wave, _I_ _set myself up for that._

From there the splash fight escalated into a bonafide training match that ended ten minutes later when Lance found a pretty seashell by accidentally stepping on it, which then resulted in Keith overshooting his punch and the both of them going down with a surprised shout and a mouthful of water. Crawling just far enough out of the water so that he could lay down without the waves making it over his face, but not so far that they couldn't reach his body, Keith collapsed onto his back and eyed the distant storm. He wasn't sure, but he thought maybe he'd heard a roll of thunder a minute ago. It was almost impossible to tell how far off the storm was because of the ocean. In the desert, Keith could look at a cloud twenty miles away and know exactly if and when it was going to rain. Here, he had no clue.

"So, do you have a foot piercing now?" he asked, rolling his head to side-eye Lance as the other paladin sat down beside him.

Lance simply dropped the spiny shell onto Keith's bare chest to inspect the bottom of his foot before declaring the skin unbroken. He went to take the seashell back, but got distracted looking at Keith's hair, then started to laugh.

"What?" Keith shot back defensively, and when he touched his hair he realized there was a length of bulbous seaweed that had gotten tangled near the base of his skull.

"You are so hopeless." Lance rolled his eyes as Keith tried and failed to get it all out, then slapped his hand away. "Turn over. I'll save your precious mullet."

Keith furrowed his eyebrow and scrunched his nose in annoyance, and reluctantly let Lance separate the wet foliage from his hair. Pretending not to enjoy it was taxing, and Keith was focusing so hard on the Herculean task that it took him longer than it should have to realize Lance's hand had been in his hair for almost a full minute, and that he was no longer trying to remove anything from it. Uncertain what to do about this, Keith chanced a look at Lance's faceㅡand immediately wished he hadn't. There were those soft eyes again. Every time he saw them was more confusing than the last, starting ( _always_ , it _always_ went back to that) with the jailbreak on Taulderin. When Lance lay bleeding out in his arms.

 _Tell my family I'm sorry,_ Lance had said with a wild glint in his eye, and Keith remembered all too vividly the bubble of blood that had lingered in the corner of his mouth. The flashes of enemy fire lighting up his gaunt face as they rang off Keith's shield, jarring them both every time. _Red always looked better on you,_ he'd chuckled low in his throat, slack fingers brushing at the blood on his chest. The bubble of blood stretched between his lips and burst. _T-tell them I love them, Keith. When you get back. To_ _ㅡ_ _to Earth. Tell them… for me. And keep them safe, okay?_

' _I'm not letting you die here'_ was what Keith had wanted to say. Tried to say, and failed. Although he could have said anything, really, and it would have been better than the words that had actually tumbled out of his mouth. _You tell them,_ he'd blurted _. You keep them safe, Lance, don't_ _ㅡ_ _don't leave me_. And those last three had earned him that look for the very first time. That _look_.

He'd gotten glimpses of it before: during the bonding moment Lance always denied, flashes of it after particularly rough victories, hints of more late at night when they were the only two left looking at the stars. But he'd never gotten the whole thing unfiltered before Taulderin. As Keith pressed his hand to the ragged hole on the soot-smeared armor and cradled his other arm beneath Lance, blocking enemy fire as he prepared to lift his friend, Lance gave him the most unfiltered smile Keith had ever received from anyone. His eyes crinkled at the corners, his eyebrows pressed down in concentration, and his lips somehow curled upward in the gentlest parabola, nevermind the gaping wound in his chest or the blood trickling down his jaw.

Keith's heart had hammered then, and it hammered again now.

"What?" Keith said, more brusquely than he meant to in his hasty attempt to cover up how _fucking_ flustered he was.

In lieu of answering, Lance laid down too as a broken wave pooled softly up around them before ebbing again toward the sea. He was on his side facing Keith, so the wave splashed up the left half of his face. Lance paid it no mind beyond closing his left eye.

Unable to hold Lance's gaze when he was giving him the Look _,_ Keith's eyes trailed down to the thick pale scar that sat far too close to his heart for comfort. He was covered in scarsㅡthey all wereㅡbut this one was larger and crisper than all the others. You could still identify each angled edge of the blade that had torn through his armor and into his honey brown skin. Every time Keith saw it he found himself subconsciously flexing his hands into fists. He wanted to touch it. He _needed_ to, to feel the texture of the new skin there, to give himself the physical comfort of knowing that Lance had healed every hurt he had ever suffered, and would do so again if and when the need arose.

"What?" Keith repeated, when he finally met Lance's eyes again and saw that the Look had somehow intensified while Keith was avoiding it.

"I'm just… thinking about what that coast guard said," Lance said softly. " _Aprovechar el sol mientras dura, mañana vendrá una tormenta._ Seize the sun while it lasts, a storm is coming tomorrow."

"He was making small talk about the weather," Keith said, remembering what Lance's reply to the coast guard had been. _That's a hell-of-a proverb._ It hadn't made sense to him at the time, but now, with full context, he understood the joke.

"I know. But still, it got me thinking."

"About the war?"

"Yeah. I mean…" They'd come home to Earth to celebrate pushing the Galra out of this sector; a milestone victory for the liberation front and a first of its kind since the takeover ten thousand years ago. Earth was officially in a safe zone. But there were _five hundred_ sectors in this quadrant of the universe, and the Galra occupied over half of them. The war was far from over. "We've come a long way," Lance sighed, "and things are looking up, for sure. But this is still just the eye of the hurricane. Once we leave Earth we're heading back into an open warzone, and god only knows what will happen to us."

"We've already been living in that open warzone for the last three years," Keith reminded him.

"I know," Lance huffed, "that's my point. I just… Don't you think we should, you know, make the most of the time we've been given?"

"Lance, you're losing me," Keith said. Lance was the one who looked flustered now, and Keith was struggling to keep up. "Metaphors are not my strongest suit."

Lance sat up with a splash, running his hands through his wet hair with a frustrated groan that echoed all the way up the empty beach. "Why are you so difficult?"

" _I'm_ difficult?" Keith blanched. "You're the one who's talking me in circles about suns and storms and eyes of hurricanes! Whatever you're trying to say, just spit it out."

"You don't have to be a _jerk_ about it," Lance spat back. "It's just, you were staring at my _scar,_ okay, and I thought maybe you wereㅡ ugh, you know what? Nevermind!"

 _Okay so he definitely noticed that then._ _Damage control, Keith_. _Bite the bullet before it kills you_. "Wait. What, Lance. What were you gonna say?" Keith sat up too, crossing his legs in the shallow water.

The look Lance gave Keith then as he turned to him was more akin to a pout than anything else. "I thought maybe you were thinking about... " He touched his scar absently. "About that night on Taulderin. Not the one when I got stabbed. I mean the one on the balcony after I got out of the healing pod."

The image of Lance bleeding in his arms flashed again in Keith's mind, but it was immediately shoved out of the way by a far more colorful memory. Keith had wandered out in search of the other paladin, who'd disappeared halfway through a celebratory dinner with the captives they'd freed earlier that week. The thirty-two captives Lance had almost died to free, which had turned out to include Pidge's brother and father on top of it all. Keith could still hear the distant chirping of foreign fauna out in the dark, and could still see the purple nebula that hung low near the horizon, reflecting on the surface of the methane lake far below them. They'd stood looking out over the starry night in solemn silence together for almost an hour before Lance found his voice.

 _So, thanks for saving my dumb ass,_ he'd said. _Guess you don't have to deliver the news of my untimely death to my family after all._ He'd laughed, then, and it'd crossed Keith's mind, not for the first time, that Lance's laughter was most likely a coping mechanism.

 _Thank god,_ Keith had thought to himself, and only when Lance's hand came to rest on his arm did he realize he'd said it aloud.

 _Hey, whenever we get back to Earth, will you come meet my family anyway?_ Lance had asked, and it seemed that the question had a whole black hole's worth of gravity inside it. The heart of it was hidden, but Keith could feel it pulling him in anyway, could see it igniting around the edges. He'd not known what to say, so he had simply nodded. Once, very seriously.

Then Lance's hand had trailed up his arm,

toward his jaw,

and lingered there, thumb brushing tentatively at the corner of his mouth.

Keith had sensed then that he was nearing some kind of event horizon. A place from which there was no return. So when Lance leaned in with half-lidded shining eyes, Keith had panicked. Had pulled away. Had fled back inside to the dinner and neither of them ever mentioned it aloudㅡthat is, until this morning in the hangar when Lance mentioned ' _calling dibs.'_

"Well, were you?" Lance asked, and on the beach in Varadero Keith bit his lip and swore at himself internally. For what, he wasn't sure.

"I am _now_ ," he said.

"And?"

At the very beginning of this whole mess Allura had sat them down one on one and explained that the paladins of Voltron should remain strictly platonic, since they would all be working so closely together in the coming years. Romance introduced complexities and risks into the equation that Voltron simply couldn't afford. Her words had made sense to Keith at the time. He may have liked Lance, even if it was mostly on an aesthetic basis back then, but of course he wouldn't act on it. Why risk the stability of the universe's only defense against the Galra over a stupid crush?

Naturally, Keith's reply to her speech had been: _Won't be a problem._ And it had turned out to be the biggest lie he'd ever told.

"And we shouldn't be thinking about that," Keith hissed under his breath, hating Lance for making him acknowledge this verbally. It was so much easier to just sweep it under the rug. Pretend it wasn't a thing. "Or talking about that. Or... doing that."

"Maybe," Lance muttered, "or maybe we should."

Keith squeezed his eyes shut. "Don't."

"Keith."

" _Don't."_

"Are you talking to me or yourself?" Lance said, a hint of amusement creeping into his voice.

That was enough to stop Keith from standing just long enough for Lance to grab his wrist and keep him grounded. "Where is this even coming from?" Keith said in exasperation. "I thought _I_ was the impulsive one!"

"This isn't an impulse, idiot. Do you want to know how long I've been thinking about this?"

"No."

"Do you want to know _what_ I think about this?"

"No."

"I think this thing between us has dragged on long enough and that we should just go for it already because no matter what happens, Voltron will be fine," Lance answered anyway. "I think if you let me kiss you right now and it turns out to be terrible and we decide never to do it again, Voltron will still be fine." Lance grinned at the gobsmacked look that his blunt words had elicited from Keith, and kept going. "I think even if you and I date for five years, get married for ten, then go through the messiest, grossest divorce ever, Voltron will _still_ be fine. Do you want to know why?"

"N-no," Keith breathed.

"Because I love you," Lance said, and Keith was _floored_ by the way it just fell out of his mouth like he'd said it a thousand times before, the way it carried the same inflection it had when he said it earlier to each member of his family. "And there's nothing in the universe that could change that. Even if we go for it and it doesn't work out, we'll still be friends, Keith. We'll always be friends. We're more than that," he finished, and Keith couldn't help remembering the unspoken offer that Lance's mother had held out to him in the kitchen. The place at the table with his name on it.

"What are you thinking?" Lance said, breaking through Keith's reverie, his confidence faltering for the first time since he launched his monologue.

"I'm thinking that you're an insufferable optimist."

"Counter: Have you considered that you're just an insufferable pessimist?"

"The risk is too high."

"That's funny, because I'd argue that the reward outweighs the risk."

"This isn't _economics_ you idiot! This is the fate of the universe we're talking about. Any risk at all is too high. Are you seriously _so sure_ thatㅡ"

"Am I so sure that I'd still care about you enough to form Voltron even if we didn't work out romantically that I'd risk the fate of the universe on it?" Lance huffed. "Yeah, I'm that sure. And you're the idiot if you think I'm stupid enough to buy that _that's_ your only reason for continuously shooting me down over this last year. Look, if you're not interested, would you justㅡjust fucking say so?" he finished desperately. "You have no _idea_ how lost I am trying to figure you out, man."

"Iㅡ" Under the intensity of Lance's gaze, Keith floundered and broke. "I thought it was obvious that I'm interested. I am. I just don't…" He thought of the way Marco had burst into the house like thunder earlier, yet had left with a tender ' _I love you'_ by the end of the night. How did that work? How did all those pieces fit together? Keith was missing a piece of the equation, and it was clearly something major. He wouldn't play a game whose rules he didn't understand. "I don't trust myself the way you do, Lance, I'm sorry."

Lance's face hardened. "That's not it at all, and you know it," he shot back. "You trust yourself just fine. It's me you don't trust."

"Whㅡ no, _where_ did you get that fromㅡ"

"Look, just, give me a chance," Lance coaxed, "please," and Keith shivered when he felt fingers on the back of his neck.

"Why are you like this," Keith heard himself whisper, detachedly. He'd been in this position exactly eight times since Taulderin, and every time he had ducked away with a muttered excuse, refusing to acknowledge the tectonic shift taking place between them. But the emotional turmoil of the day had shaken his defenses. God, he must be weak if one hand on his neck was all the pressure his walls needed to finish crumbling. "You're so fucking persistent," he accused, although his stomach was lurching with anticipation. "Just one, Lance. Justㅡ"

Keith's first thought when their lips touched was _okay, this is happening,_ and then his internal monologue went speechless.

The warm Cuban night narrowed to a small patch of wet sand, an occasional wandering wave, and Lance. There was nothing but the warmth of his breath and the soft pull of his lips as he lifted and came back again and again, pushing, patiently, and dammit Keith was not a patient person. Lance sucked in a sharp breath when Keith grabbed a handful of his hair and cemented him in place. Screw it. If this was happening then it was _happening_.

Of course Lance immediately understood what he wanted and then Keith was falling backwards onto the compressed sand. The latest shallow wave did nothing to stay their fall. They fell hard, Lance's nose pressing into his cheek and Lance's rough tongue sliding along the top of his. Keith made a noise then that would have embarrassed the shit out of him had it not been echoed immediately by Lance, who was now halfway on top of him and working his way even farther. There was so much warmth. Skin touched skin along every square inch, sliding closer as water splashed up between them and under Keith's back, causing him to sink farther into the cavity his limbs had begun to carve in the beach sand. With every wave they slipped an inch further toward the sea.

"This still counts as one," Keith said breathlessly as Lance's knee dug into the sand between his legs, and it sounded like maybe Lance wanted to laugh as he left Keith's mouth to paint a line of half-delivered kisses down the curve of his jaw. But Keith would never know for sure.

When he felt something wet that was definitely not saltwater secure itself languidly to his pulse, Keith gasped and arched his back away from the sand involuntarily, bringing their bodies fully flushed together. When he started to fall again Lance's arm snaked under the small of his back to hold him there, that close. Keith swore under his breath at how _good_ it was. All of it. Lance, his home, his family, his words, his mouth, his hands, his _hips_ , it wasn't fair, it wasn't _fair_.

"What isn't fair?" Lance murmured in his ear, and shit, he'd said that last part aloud hadn't he, he really needed to stop doing that.

"You," Keith groaned, "just, _you_." And immediately after he spoke, they heard a voice in the distance.

Lance looked up and shot halfway out of the water. "Laura," he said, "It's Laura!"

"Go," Keith said, when it was clear he was hesitating.

Flecks of water and mud kicked up around them as Lance scrambled to his feet and took off running up the beach. Keith sat up slowly, watching him go, watching the dark silhouette descend the beachfront toward him with hair trailing behind her in the breeze until they came together in the middle and became one silhouette, outlined in silver moonlight, twisting, turning, and jumping. As Keith watched the distant reunion, he was overcome with the strangest combination of sorrow and serenity. Their frantic voices carried across the sand in pockets and Keith didn't bother trying to catch any of the words. He simply waited.

Thinking.

Thinking that once upon a time he'd been jealous of Lance's large family. Hated listening to Lance talk about them, hated looking at the grainy memories in the mindmeld sessions, hated the face Lance would make when he stared off into space and claimed to be thinking about nothing when probed about it. Hated being able to recognize it as the same face Lance would make at that dog-eared photo he kept in his pocket. Hated how much he wanted a photo of his own. Hated how god damn _jealous_ he was.

But, sometime today, that jealousy had been silently replaced. _I don't want a family of my own,_ Keith realized as he watched Lance pick Laura clear off her feet and swing her full circle. _I just want this one._

 _Fuck._

 _Fuck, fuckity, fuck._

After the longest time, he became aware that Lance was shouting his name, and took that as his cue to stop wallowing in the water.

Keith wondered, as Laura cleared her throat awkwardly and shook his hand, if she had seen them kissing. What had Lance told her? He ended the handshake quickly, and then trailed a fair distance behind the two of them all the way back to the house.

 **. . * . .**

When he got inside, Lance was flicking on the living room light to demonstrate his bayard for Laura, who if not for the longer hair and the fact that Keith knew she was a year younger, would have looked something like Lance's twin. "I knew it," Laura was rambling, "I knew it, Lance, _I knew it,_ and everyone said I was crazy! You have no idea the amount of shit I've gone through at the Garrison trying to prove this mess."

"I think I have some idea," Lance said sadly, then moved to drop his bayard on the foldout couch. But he froze when Laura's fingertips brushed at his bare, freshly dried back.

Keith realized what Laura was looking at before Lance did and allowed himself a small, "Oh shit."

"Lance," Laura breathed, and the heartbreak in her voice was a live thing that filled the room with molten fire. "Wh-whereㅡ? _How..._ " Her fingers trembled on the biggest scar on her brother's back, the angry, bubbly spiderweb from the first time Lance ever played the 'sacrifice myself for others' game, way back on Arus. Before she could even articulate the question her fingers trailed to the next scar, a thin crescent nearer his shoulder. Then the crosshatch on the back of his arm, and a sob tore through her as he turned around and gently pulled her hand off. The sob only doubled as she saw that there were an equal amount of scars on his frontside to match, and she rounded on Keith then with fire in her eyes, as if to demand answers, as if to blame him for all the harm that had ever befallen her brother in his time away from Earth.

But as her eyes found Keith in the open doorway, the flames faltered. Keith held still as Laura raked her eyes over him, feeling keenly naked under her gaze and not at all in a physical way. He knew she was looking at Keith's scars, too, and realizing what they represented. Could hear the gears turning in her brain, leading her all the way from ' _my brother is in danger'_ to ' _my brother is a soldier now.'_ When those wide eyes shuttered Keith knew she'd seen enough, and so he took his leave of them, slipping silently into the hallway.

Like the true fearless soldier that he was, Keith... hid out in the kitchen.

For a long time.

Trying not to think about the conversation Laura and Lance must be having, Keith poked around at the photos magnetized to the fridge, skipping over the ones of Lance at first in favor of the ones of Ben and Gabi, but then going back to them against his will once he'd exhausted all the other nooks and crannies of the kitchen with his tired eyes. The most recent picture they had of Lance looked like it was probably taken during his time in the Garrison three or four years ago, perhaps by Pidge or Hunk, and sent back home. He was standing far too close to the edge of the roof (definitely off-limits), staring into the dying desert sun with curiosity tugging the strings on his body, completely at ease with his proximity to the dropoff. Almost like he might not fall if he jumped.

So deep in thought was Keith that when he took his hand off the photo and turned around only to see Laura leaning against the table and watching him intently, he almost dropped the empty glass he'd forgotten to fill with water. "So," Laura said. "The Red Paladin, is it?"

"Uh… yeah." Keith busied himself at the tap, but felt Laura's presence draw up on his right side. He refused to look at her.

"My parents explained most of this Voltron stuff before I went down to the beach to find you guys," Laura said, and the unflinching tone of her voice did nothing to prepare him for her next words, which were: "I saw you kissing, y'know."

Great. Keith stared at the black window above the sink.

"Don't worry, Lance didn't put me up to this," she said. "He denied it happened when I tried to pester him about it. But I know what I saw, and I just, needed to say a few things. That's my brother in there, _Rojo_."

"Okay," Keith said to the window. "I'm listening."

"Number one," Laura launched, "Lance does _not_ fall in love easily. _Y_ _te recuerdo,_ Mr. 'I'm too good for friends' _Piloto Superior_. _No jodas con él, mójol_ _ㅡ"_

"Woah, _woah_ , you lost me," Keith cut in, though he was pretty sure he'd heard the words ' _fuck with him'_ in there, so he'd gotten the gist, and did he hear the words ' _top pilot?'_ Hang on, had Lance told her about him before they left Earth?! "And Lance," he said weakly, throwing that priceless piece of information into the memory well with the rest of it, "you know that he flirts with anything that moves, right?"

"I'm not gonna validate that with an answer," Laura growled in English. "You know exactly what I meant. On to number two." Laura paused, joining Keith in his gaze out the kitchen window. There were a few bright stars visible here between the trees, and one faint yellow satellite sliding on across the patch of sky. "Lance said it _has_ to be you guys." Her voice dropped to a whisper, as if she was scared that Lance was listening in around the corner. The malice was muted now to a quiet simmer beneath a froth of concern and heartache. "Something about life forces and weapons and… I don't understand, Keith, can't this Allura person just pick someone else? Anyone else? It sounds like there's a whole universe full of candidates. Why does the Blue Paladin have to be Lance? We need him here, Keith. I can't lose him again. Not so soon. _Please_."

Laura had worked herself up into a near frenzy, and it was odd how much it reminded Keith of Lance, the way his voice edged into a higher register the more frantic he got. Without thinking, he placed a soothing hand on Laura's shoulder. That helped calm her enough for Keith to get a word in edgewise.

"Laura," he said quietly, "I know what you want to hear, but I can't give you that answer." A tear slipped out of one of her eyes and the malice returned full gale, wiping any trace of weakness from her face. Despite the fresh wave of obvious hatred, Keith plowed on. "Lance is an indispensable part of the team. It's hard to explain, but each lion chooses their paladin based on certain strengths. Lance is like… There's a reason his bayard turns into a gun. Here, look at mine," Keith said, and whipped out his own bayard to materialize the sword, ignoring Laura's shock in favor of getting quickly to the point. "Mine's meant for close range. For intimate fights and quick decisions."

Laura sighed, one finger sliding along the broad side of the red Altean blade. She was caught between anger and understanding. "I see where this is going. Lance's weapon is long range because he's the one who thinks ahead, right? The big picture guy. He's always been like that..."

"Right. And it's not just in battle. It's everything. Lance is our compass, Laura, and we would be completely lost without him. The war would be lost without him."

 _I would be lost without him._

He held the last one in check, but something on Laura's face told him she'd heard it anyway.

 **. . * . .**

When Keith made it back to the living room after changing into his pajamas, he thought at first that Lance and Laura had already passed out together on the foldout bed. It was nearing 5am now, after all. Cuban time, that is. Back on the castleship, they ran on a schedule halfway between (Earth) Mountain Standard Time and whatever constituted a time zone for the Altean Capitol back before it'd been destroyed, which would have Keith in bed sleeping around…... ten hours ago now? Sure. So, yeah, Keith was tired. But when he sat down at the edge and put his face in his hands, the springs creaked behind him.

"Thought metaphors weren't your strongest suit," Lance slurred, and Keith sunk a little further into his hands. He'd heard them talking. Of _course_ he'd heard them talking. "No need to sulk," Lance grumbled, clearly half asleep and falling fast. "Just forget it ever happened, man. What happens in Cuba.. stays in Cuba, and all... that j-jazzz…"

Keith glanced over his shoulder at the pair of slack-jawed snoring siblings, all tangled up in the blankets together like they were seven and eight instead of nineteen and twenty, Laura with her head tucked into Lance's shoulder. Here they hadn't seen each other in three years, and Keith never would have guessed it by looking at them if he hadn't already known.

If only love were that easy for him.

It wasn't until he grabbed his pillow and moved to the floor an hour later, around 6am, that his brain finally shut the fuck up long enough for him to pass out.

* * *

 **Spanish-English translations:**

Y te recuerdo, Mr. 'I'm too good for friends' Piloto Superior. No jodas con él, mójolㅡ" ㅡ "And I remember you, Mr. 'I'm too good for friends' Top Pilot. Don't fuck with him, mulletㅡ"

...

 **Notes:**

Poor Laura. Poor Lance. Poor Keith... Gear up for the next (and last) chapter, coming soon. ;) How can a fic be so fluffy and angsty at the same time? I seriously have no idea. Someone punch me lmao. Also, happy birthday, Lance, I'm totally posting this on ur birthday on purpose. Yup. Toootally planned that.

So I loosely (very loosely) follow Voltron updates, and it seems like it's been confirmed that Lance is the youngest of his siblings. Sigh. It's whatevs, consider this story as slightly au then. I do love him as the youngest (because how FRICKng cute is that) but honestly, he works just as well as the middle kid too. I'm the middle of five, so I'm way too familiar with the fight for attention when you're born in the middle. The youngest ones get the most attention, the oldest ones get the first successes/graduations etc... You have to really raise your voice to be heard, so to speak. I guess that's why it made perfect sense to me that he would be smack dab in the middle. Plus there was that family photo. Uncle Lance is just as endearing as big brother Lance though! (Obviously I love that, considering my use of Little Lance in this fic heheheheh.)

And I'm just rambling now. Next/last chapter will hopefully be up next Friday. As always, if you speak Spanish, please do let me know if I've made any mistakes! I'm trying my best with Google Translate and what I remember from school, but my high school Spanish teacher was Whitey McWhiterson and a bad teacher to boot.


	4. Chapter 4

When Keith awoke, it was more comfortably than he ever had in recent memory. First there was the warmth. Not just in the blankets around him and the feathery pillow under his head, but in the air. Quite unlike the sterile frigid air of the castleship, the air here bore a dense humidity and a tinge of salt that didn't quite sting, and under that the fragrant smell of fried bread. The sound of rain. Light and unintrusive, yet insistent, pattering on the rooftop somewhere above. Then there were the voices. Overlapping and unintelligible but unmistakably bright. Not near, but not too far. Just around the corner, maybe, or behind a thin wall. Under the blanket Keith stirred, trying to rid himself of the lingering dream before getting up to start the day's training.

But when he sat up and pried his heavy eyelids open, instead of his quarters on the ship he saw the McClain's living room saturated by midday light. Ah. Not a dream, then. A rush of intense emotion washed through him at the realization, capped off by a sudden dread of joining the others in the other roomㅡof seeing Lance.

Okay, that was a _smidge_ more dread than he was used to upon waking. That meant a recap of everything that happened yesterday was necessary before he could even think about getting up. So.

 _You're on Earth, in Varadero, in Lance's house. Those voices belong to his family, this house is where he grew up, his sister missed him so much she pulled a Pidge, his brother named a baby after him, his mother wants to adopt you and you kind of want to let her, last night he told you he loved you like it was the simplest thing in the world, and then you made out with him like the universe was ending for five fucking minutes on the beach. Oh, and Laura saw._

Keith allowed himself a long look at these events from a carefully detached point of view, until he got to the making out on the beach part, at which point he was assaulted by the sensation of that memory and promptly shut down the mental review.

 _I am going to die._

He was alone in this room, for now, and apparently sometime during the morning he'd moved in his sleep from the floor back to the vacated pullout bed. _Or someone moved you,_ the internal voice that sounded vaguely like Shiro pointed out. Ignoring it, Keith threw the blanket off his lap and slid out of bed. How long had he slept? Felt like no more than four or five hours, so that put him around 10am or 11am Cuban time.

Keith hadn't even stepped halfway into the hallway when he ran directly into Laura.

"Oh! I was just coming to check on you," she said, and if he wasn't absolute shit at reading facial cues he'd say she looked almost guilty about the conversation they'd had last night. But one blink and the look was replaced by a glare.

It occurred to him then that Laura probably hated him for the exact same reason the rest of them loved him. While Keith may have been the personification of Lance's return for most of the family, for Laura, Keith stood for Lance's eventual re-disappearance. Awesome. Good, greatㅡ

"Come on, _mójol._ You better hurry and eat. We saved some breakfast for you, but no food is sacred when the whole family is home." As if to punctuate the statement, Ben and Gabi chose that exact moment to race by them in the narrow hall, each with a fork in their hands. "Especially with those two garbage disposals running around," she mumbled, and Keith followed her (and the aromatic smell) all the way to the kitchen, where true to Laura's word, the entire family (minus Ben and Gabi now) was gathered. Despite the chaos and the many people, Keith's eyes instantly found Lance, who was sitting at the dining table in front of an empty plate with Little Lance standing on his lap.

Lance met his eyes and whatever story he'd been telling died on his lips. Keith noted that Lance was the only one in the kitchen who was soaking wet from head to toe. "What? It's raining," Lance defended as Keith looked him over, as if that was justification enough.

 _"Dude,"_ someone shrieked, and Keith's eyes slid two feet to Lance's left, where an unintroduced new guy was now staring at Keith like he'd just done a triple backflip into the room. Tall, brunette, white. Who the hellㅡ? "You didn't say he was a _babe._ "

"Dude," Lance hissed back mockingly, "you saw him when you walked in!"

"But he was, like, buried in blankets," the man shot back, and Keith truly did not know whether to feel flattered or infuriated by this conversation.

"Keith," Marco gestured, "this is Steven. Steven, Keith. Steven was Lance's best friend growing up, so he's basically family. Whether we like it or not."

"Pleasure," Keith mumbled, and promptly made his way past Marco and Jessica's chairs over to Sal and Jocelyn where they stood giggling by the stove near all the food. Rain turned the kitchen windows into kaleidoscope paintings of the world outside, and blanket the kitchen in soothing white noise. But it wasn't loud enough to fully mask the sound of Lance and Steven hissing at each other under their breath.

 _"You should have told me that 'mullet' was a term of endearment! First that badass Vogue alien-witch, and now_ this _guy? Take me to space immediately."_

 _"Steven, would you shut the fuck up, he's standing right there."_

Sal bit his lip to hide his laughter as he passed Keith a fork from the open drawer. Jocelyn didn't bother hiding her amusement from him at all.

 _"Since when did thatㅡ? Ohhh."_

 _"I swear to all that isㅡ"_

 _"I gotchu."_

 _"SHUT THEㅡ_ Oh hey, hi, so nice of you to join the land of the living, Keith." As Keith arrived with his plate in hand at the farthest available chair from Lance and Steven, Lance released his friend from a surprise headlock. Steven rubbed at his neck where Lance's arm had been and shot an annoying smirk at Keith. "It's only, what," Lance went on with feigned nonchalance, "7pm by castleship time?"

Keith sighed and dug in. _Not even close._ "I think that is literally the most wrong you've ever been about anything. And you're wrong a lot, so. Color me impressed."

After a beat of silence that went on long enough for Keith to wonder if he'd overdone it in front of Lance's family, Steven _guffawed_. Soonafter his laughter was chorused with everyone else's. "Keith," Steven chortled, "Keith, my guy, you absolute savage. Marry me. Bear my children. Bear me elevenㅡ no, twelve children."

Maybe Keith just wanted to mess with Lance. Maybe he was just in a good mood. Or maybe he could tell this guy was big on jokes and _maybe_ he wanted to make a good impression on Lance's oldest friend. Whatever the reason, the words that fell out of Keith's mouth in response were dry and deadpan and crafted for the kill.

"Take me to dinner first and we'll talk," he said.

The effect was immediate: Lance busted up and doubled over his plate. He was now the only one laughing, but boy did he make up for that in volume. Lance's laugh was so boisterous and loud that Keith couldn't help the smile that cracked through his carefully blank expression. Steven's eyes flicked to it immediately and he broke into a maniacal smile as he connected the dots, and Keith's heart fell out his ass.

"Alright, alright," Steven said lightly. Regally. "I get it. You're progressive. Won't marry someone you just met, right? So here's a thought. Have you considered marrying," (one swooping, grandiose gesture to his right), "my boy Lance?"

"Whㅡ _Steven_ ," Lance choked.

Lucky for Keith, he was spared having to answer right away due to the fact that he had conveniently shoved an enormous bite of bread into his mouth. He was sure he looked like a boiling kettle though, and it only got worse as Steven banged his hand on the table and cackled at Lance's obvious discomfort, until Laura came up beside him and smacked Steven upside the head.

"Oh come on!" Steven hiccuped, shoving Laura away playfully. "You guys can't tell me you don't want this one in the family, effective immediately. Everyone's thinking it! I mean, _look_ at him. God, he looks so lost. Someone adopt him or I'm going to."

"Keith," Jessica whispered at Keith's left, "on Steven's behalf, I am so sorry."

"And mortified," Marco piped in.

"Jeez, Lance," Steven chuckled, "take a chill pill. I was just kidding."

"No," Lance said, and Keith's jaw froze mid-chew at the abrupt shift in Lance's tone. Something was wrong. It wasn't just because it was Lance that Keith caught this before everyone else; living in close quarters and battling back to back with anyone made you incredibly in tune with the sound of their voice, and the subtle micro-expressions that betrayed more information than they ever did aloud. Everyone else heard 'no,' but Keith heard, 'trouble.' Universe-scale trouble. Keith was already setting his fork down by the time Lance went on to say, "Sorry, it's not that. Someone's calling me on my comm. One of the others."

"Why do you look upset about it?" Marco asked as Lance reluctantly pulled the Altean microcomputer from his back pocket, then turned to Keith when Lance didn't answer. "What does that mean?"

Keith had left his own in the living room, but he knew it must also be buzzing. "Could mean anything," Keith said.

But it could really only mean one thing, and Lance knew it too, judging by the nausea that was evident on his face. His eyes slid up from the screen to land on Keith's, his finger poised over the _'accept incoming call'_ button. "It's the emergency channel."

"Should we answer it in the other room?" Keith asked quietly, even though the kitchen was dead silent and everyone would have heard the question no matter how quietly he asked it.

There was a murmuring of dissent at the suggestion, which petered out when Lance shook his head and said, "No, we'll answer it here. They deserve to know."

Nodding, Keith rose from his chair to circle around toward Lance's side of the table as Lance took a deep breath and answered the call. Allura's voice preceded her appearance on screen, cracking into the thick silence that had descended on the kitchen like a warhammer. "Lance! I am so sorry to do this to youㅡ"

"Shi-h-hit," Lance said, and he was already rising from his chair by the time Keith had circled around to see Allura peering into the camera with the guiltiest, most pitying expression, and Coran standing in the background with a frown as deep as the Grand Canyon etched onto his face.

"You know I wouldn't do this unless it were absolutelyㅡ oh, hello there," she said, her grave expression shifting into one of subdued delight. "Lance, which one is this?"

Lance glanced to his left, where Gabi had shoved herself into view to get a good look at the Altean. "Uhh… this is Gabi. And…" Lance panned the comm out in a wide sweep of the kitchen, giving Allura a brief glimpse of everyone else before turning it back toward himself and Keith. "That's everyone else," he finished sadly.

"O-oh," Allura said, and if Keith wasn't mistaken, she looked like she was two second from bursting into tears. "Hello everyone! Lance has t-told us.. so m-muchㅡ"

At this point Coran reentered the frame on Allura's left, clearing his throat and staring directly at them. "What Allura means to say, is that she's terribly sorry to cut this familial reconnection short, but something has come up."

" _What_ has come up?" Laura said, pulling Gabi out of the way to take her place in view of Lance's comm.

"Oh dear. Lance, perhaps you and Keith shouldㅡ"

"No," Laura shouted, and slammed one hand down on the table so hard that all the plates and glasses rattled in place. "Whatever has come up, you can say it in front of us!"

"Keith? A little help?" Coran appealed, but one look into Laura's steely eyes had Keith backing down before he'd even started.

"Laura's right," Keith said instead, and placed one hand on Lance's slouching shoulder. "And besides, I think Lance wants them to know, Coran. Whatever it is. Go ahead and brief us."

"Ahhh…. Okey dokey then. Allura?"

"As you wish. The Galra have returned in full force to retake the base we last liberated," Allura said, the emotional bubble gone from her throat now, replaced by her usual regal insistence.

"What?" Lance gasped. "I thought we crippled them there! They shouldn't be back out to this sector for likeㅡ months! At least!"

"We all thought that." Allura's lips pressed into a thin, tight line. "But the distress signal from the locals came in from the base not five dobashes ago, and it's unmistakeable."

"Could it be a trick?" Keith asked.

"Even if it was, we'd still have to check it out," Lance sighed.

"Right you are, number three," Coran said. "Best to just snip this in the butt, as you paladins like to say."

"No one says that, Coran," Lance snapped in an uncharacteristically harsh tone of voice, before saying, "We'll be back at the ship in three vargas. Blue's parked a ways offshore so that's as soon as we can make it." Then he cut off the channel without giving either Coran or Allura time to respond.

"Wait, you're _leaving?_ " Marco cried out in disbelief, and then the room broke into chaos.

Keith was jostled aside as everyone closed in on them, each family member tugging at Lance's shirt in the effort to grab the most of his attention. Keith tried to interject a few words here and there, tried to answer some of the questions, ease some of the devastation, but he'd never been good at navigating situations like this. Never been good with words. Or people. Or anything. He'd just about reached his breaking point and was about ready to bolt out of the house in a full sprint when Lance broke first.

"You don't get it!" Lance shouted. "None of you understand! I _have_ to leave. I'm not leaving because I want to abandon you or something, okay? You think I wanted this? Any of this? When I left my barracks at the Garrison on the day I disappeared, it was so Hunk and Pidge and I could sneak out and go _dancing_. I didn't expect to never come home. So stop looking at me allㅡall heartbrokenㅡbecause I guarantee I am more heartbroken than any of you!"

"Lance," Keith warned, but Lance shoved his hand off his arm.

"That base Allura was talking about was the last remaining on a Galra-occupied planet in this sector. _Earth's sector._ And now they're coming back with full forces andㅡ god, you don't get it, we have to keep them from retaking it because they have to know that this sector is off limits!"

"Lanceㅡ"

"Do you have any idea what full force looks like in a fleet of Galra warships? Imagine the entire US air force times four hundred million, in space, coming this way, with weapons you couldn't even comprehendㅡ"

 _"Lance,"_ Keith roared, both his hands covering Ben's ears now in a conscious reflection of what Marco had done with Little Lance, "would you shut the fuck up!"

Lance wheeled on him with teary-eyed fury, but it all blew out in a puff of air when he saw Keith with his hands pressed determinedly over Ben's ears. Gabi was too far or she'd have gotten the same treatment. Only when Lance faltered did Keith let go.

Ben immediately ran to Lance and threw his arms around his brother.

"I just thought I had more time," Lance said, and his furious voice finally broke into something terribly small. "I'm not ready to leave yet."

"So don't," Laura said with conviction.

Keith watched the rest of them close in around the missing link to their family, and that 'out of place' feeling reared its head again. "We have to," Keith replied on Lance's behalf, and excused himself from the emotional hurricane in the kitchen to go and gather his and Lance's things from the front room.

By the time he came back a scant minute later, the atmosphere in the kitchen had shifted in a surprising way.

"ㅡcan't believe you sailed all the way over from Cayo Mono in a boat you built from space trash." Steven was saying.

"It's not trash!"

"Regardless," Steven emphasized, we'll get back to yourㅡwhat was itㅡ?"

"Lion!" Gabi helped.

"Right. We'll get there faster in my speedboat. But we need to pick it up at my house, which meansㅡ"

"We need to leave five minutes ago," Lance finished. "Got it. Keith? You ready to go, buddy?"

"Um. Actually," Keith said, feeling a twinge of jealousy at the weird ease that Lance and Steven played off each other despite a few years separation, "if you guys are going to pick up a better boat, I'm going to split off and grab supplies."

What happened to Lance's face when Keith said this could only be described as breathtaking. He lit up so fast it was a wonder Keith didn't liquefy. "Keith, you magnificent bastard. Why didn't I think of that? I could kiss you right now."

"Please don't," he joked back, because dammit, he knew Lance was joking but Laura was standing right there and he could feel the heat of her hatred scorching him like dragonfire. "Meet you down where the old boat is moored in one hour?"

"Done. Ben, Little Lance, and Laura, you're with me and Steven on Team Speedboat. Everyone else, you're on Team Earth Food with Keith. Make sure he gets the good stuff! I swear to god if he shows up with a bag full of slim jims or somethingㅡ"

"Um, I think I'd feel better if Little Lance was on me and Jess's team," Marco laughed anxiously.

"Don't worry, Marco, Laura and I will watch him," Steven laughed back. "Come on, they're already besties."

"Exactly!" Lance triumphed. "Okay, see you all at the dock in one hour!"

With that, the kitchen was suddenly half empty, and Keith was suddenly left with the task of deciding what food to bring back from Earth in under an hour. Oh no. He didn't even have any money. Well, he had a few gacs at the bottom of his bag, but he was pretty sure they weren't interchangeable with Cuban currency. Even if they were, they'd only be enough to buy like three, maybe four slim jims.

"Wait," Sal said as the back door slammed shut behind Team Speedboat and muted the sound of the island storm. "So was Lance serious that you guys haven't had _any_ Earth food since you left three years ago? What have you been eating?"

"You don't want to know," Keith said.

"There's no way we can send you with enough food to tide you guys over till the next time you come back to Earth," Jessica said. "We don't even know how long you'll be gone. And there's five of you humans, right?"

"Oh," Keith said, a tantalizing thought occurring to him, "actually, the quantity doesn't matter. Because whatever I get back to the ship with, I can just stick it in the replicator and save it to the database. We've been eating Altean food because that's all the replicator has to work with in its file memory. So if I were to bring back, say… the basic building blocks of the human diet, I'm sure Pidge and Hunk could work together to engineer all sorts of human foods."

"Well in _that_ case," Jocelyn smiled, and promptly whipped a box of ziploc bags out of a drawer. "Why don't I just send you home with a small sample of everything?"

While Jocelyn set about bagging up samples of sugar and rice and flour and milk and everything under the sun, labelling each bag in sharpie as if it were one big science experiment, Marco and Jessica pulled Keith to the side for a quick word. "So what else have you guys been missing about Earth?" Marco asked.

"Oh. Uh.."

"It's not a trick question," Jessica said warmly. "We want to know if there's anything else we can send back with you. With Lance. And for the others, too. Not for survival, necessarily. Not food, per se, but _soul_ food, if that makes any sense."

Keith blinked at them for a solid five seconds, his mind a total blank, before the answer barreled into him out of nowhere in the form of Lance's watery smile last night as Marco played guitar in the living room. "Music," he said. After food, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge spoke of almost nothing else when they devolved into those long conversations where they talked about Earth and what they missed most, skirting delicately around the subject of family. "None of us have heard an Earth song in three years, and the others… Lance never shuts up about it," he said fondly.

"That's an easy one," Jessica said immediately, and pulled an iPod out of her back pocket to dump it in Keith's surprised hands, earbuds and all. "Next?"

"Hang on, what? You can't just give this to me."

"Just did," Jessica said, and she was already pulling Marco's out of his back pocket too. "Stop pouting," she whispered at her husband, "it's for Leandro! We can get new ones. Besides, yours has completely different music on it than mine. They need both. Keith?" she said, dropping Marco's too in his hands. "Next?"

"I don't know." Could they put an ocean sunrise into a ziploc bag and label it with a sharpie? Could they bottle rain in a way that would carry the smell of desert petrichor with it across ten million light years? "That's it, I guess. Most of the things we miss aren't things we can take with us," he settled vaguely.

"Hmm," Marco said. "Oh, that's it! You're a genius, Keith."

And then Keith was being pulled upstairs to gather all the digital photographs he had time to download from the family computer onto his own computer, minus the five minutes it took to figure out how to transfer them from Earth tech to Altean tech in the first place. So they were thirty-five minutes into the allotted hour before the meetup when Keith sighed and cut off the transfer. They'd gotten a lot, and didn't have time for anything else. They needed to go.

On the way back downstairs, Keith noticed a picture on the wall he hadn't seen on the way up due to the nook it was resting in. It was a photo of young Lance in dazzling blue water, lying on his back facing up, the cameraman standing on the bow of a boat looking down. All around him the ocean sparkled with life. Three manta rays flanked him, their fins grazing his limbs, and under that the coral painted the ocean a landscape of florescent rainbow, breathing with life, with fish of all shapes and colors and size frozen in time beneath the rolling surface of the sea.

"Animals," Keith heard himself say, his boots glued to the top step. "That's the other thing we miss the most. Terran animals."

He could feel Marco and Jessica and Gabi stilling behind him at the top of the stairs. "I don't think we can help with that one," Jessica said carefully.

Keith almost jumped when he felt something soft and warm on his hand. He looked down at it in surprise, saw Gabi's hand, and looked up into her bright, smiling face. Then she was pulling him away from the stairs, back up the hallway toward a room that he hadn't been inside yet. The room was a mess of about three different themes. Pink, Elvis Presley, and space. It was weird and messy and girly yet not, and Keith stood awkwardly in the doorway as Gabi skipped into the bedroom humming, wondering why she had brought him here. Understanding washed over him when she arrived at the fish tank by the window and pulled off the lid.

"This used to be Lance's room too," she remarked as she carefully scooped a bright red fish out with a net and dunked a jar into the water to fill it. "Since I took his room, he can have my fish. His name is Rufio. You'll make sure Lance takes good care of him, right?" she added quietly to Keith as she finished throwing a few more aquatic plants in after Rufio and screwed a golden lid onto the jar. "And feeds him every day? And puts him in a warm, colorful spot?"

Not trusting himself to speak, Keith simply nodded.

 **. . * . .**

When they got to the docks and Gabi handed over Rufio (along with a ziploc baggie of fish food labelled with as much care as Jocelyn had labelled the human food), Lance crushed Gabi in a hug so tight it was a wonder she didn't break in half. Then came everyone else's turn. It wasn't as bad as it was back in the kitchen. Everyone seemed to have come to terms with the fact Lance was leaving again, and were composed enough to say goodbye. It was hard to hear anything that was being said through all the rain, anyway, and the only person who'd bothered to bring an umbrella was Jessica, who was holding Little Lance on her waist beneath it. After hugging Big Lance one last time, Jocelyn made her way over to Keith, who was leaning self-consciously against the railing of the creaking dock, ready for this nightmare to be over.

"Keith," she called over the rain, and Keith knew right away he was done for. "It was good to meet you. We all look forward to seeing you again in the future."

"Thanks," he said, cordially. "You too. And thanks for the hospitality." As short-lived as it had turned out to be.

"You're misunderstanding me," she smiled, an act which on her was something of a full-body motion. "Whenever your team makes it back to Earth, will you please come with Lance and see us again? We'll be very sad if you don't, honey."

"Iㅡ I'm sorry, you're right. I don't understand at all," he said in genuine surprise. He didn't mean to be rude, he was just so confused by this woman. Her actions made no sense. "You don't even know me,"

"Maybe not," she said sadly. "But Lance does, and that's what matters. _Familia de familia es familia,_ Keith." And for once, he didn't need a translation. "It _means_ something that he brought you home with him. You know that, don't you?"

Keith grew distracted as Lance finished up his goodbyes and vaulted the railing after Steven and Laura, past Jocelyn and Keith, before shouting at Keith to get a move on. "I know," Keith said to Jocelyn, and before he could second-guess himself, gave her a quick hug before jumping into the boat after Lance.

"Finish signing the adoption papers?" Steven joked, and Lance elbowed him hard enough in the ribs to make him stumble into a dip in the flooring. Keith was pretty sure he'd turned away fast enough to prevent Lance seeing the telltale sting of moisture in his eyes, but when the motor revved and the boat left the dock, Lance clambered across the boat to sit down by Keith anyway. Keith was about to say _I'm fine, god, leave me alone_ or something to that effect, when he heard Lance draw in a long, shuddering breath.

Right. Lance was the one who wasn't fine.

Keith looked up then from the tangled net where it swished in the pooling rain on the floorboards to see Laura sitting directly across them, glaring at a flash of fractal lightning that struck far out to sea. Once, twice, and gone. Behind her was Steven, steadfastly steering the speedboat through the choppy waves toward Cayo Mono. Toward Blue, toward the castleship, toward the stars.

When Keith's hand ghosted at Lance's trembling back, he sighed and scooted over gratefully. Gracelessly. It drew Laura's eye but Keith let it happen, let Lance's head droop onto his shoulder unquestioned, let the sorrow breathe its way out of them both to be borne away on the ocean wind. There was nothing to be said. So none of them spoke.

Until they got to shore.

Until Lance tried to say goodbye to Steven and Laura, and Laura responded with, "I'm coming with you."

"What? No you're not," Lance blanched.

"I'm coming with you," she repeated, more determined than ever. "I can help you Lance, I can help fight, I canㅡ"

"No, no," Lance reeled, "Laura, no. You don't understand what it's like out there."

"I understand just fine!" she shouted, and the water swished in Rufio's jar as Lance took a faltering step back. "It's you that doesn't understand. What I've been through these last three years looking for you, Lance. I didn'tㅡI haven't had time yet to tell you. About the Garrison. What I've done there in my search for the truth. What I've found. What I've read and seen and overheard. I _know things,_ Lance. I've _done_ things. I'm not a child anymore!"

"I know you're not." Lance's lip trembled with uncertainty, but his furrowed brow and icy eyes told a different tale. "If you really understand what's going on, then I need you _here_ , Laura. Listen, take my comm." He tucked Rufio's jar under one arm to pull the Altean computer out of his back pocket. Rain pelted the screen, each drop lighting up as it flickered to life. "I was about to give it to you anyway. It's got all our intel, our battle logs, profiles of the enemy, you name itㅡ"

"I don't want your stupid computer!" Laura shouted, even as Lance tried to pull her fingers closed around the device. Her voice was going hoarse now, and Steven was there at her side trying to calm her, but she shoved him away. "I want to help. I want to do something."

" _This_ is what you can do," Lance pleaded. "Use the knowledge in here to keep Earth safe. _Please_."

"If you leave me behind again, I'll never forgive you."

Lance didn't seem to hear that. "You can even send messages to me with this," he plowed on. "I'll have to get a new one obviously, and it'll take a long time to reach us once we leave the sector, but just send it to Keith and I'll see it, okay?"

"Fine," she bellowed, "fine. Then just _fuck off_ back to space." And for a moment Keith was certain she was going to punch Lance in the face. But then she turned, shoved the comm into Steven's hands, and set off for the boat where it was moored on the sand.

"I'm sorry," Lance whispered, only loud enough for Keith to hear.

And Keith had _finally_ had enough of Laura.

"Uh-uh," he deadpanned. "No. _Nope_. Laura, get your ass back here!"

She stopped dead in her tracks, converse skidding in the beach sand, long hair whipping around in fat, dripping locks as she turned back toward them. "Excuse me?"

"What is _wrong with you?_ " Keith fumed, and all his pent up emotion from the last two days came hurtling to the surface to froth out of his mouth. "You don't even know when you'll see him again and that's how you're gonna leave this? Do you realize how much Lance has missed you, and them, and this place? He thinks of nothing else." Keith slipped in the mud in his blind march of rage, but caught himself and kept going. "Especially you. Laura this, Laura that, _I miss Laura, I hope she's okay._ Youㅡ _you_ ㅡhow could you justㅡ"

"Keith, it's okay. Calm down." Normally that phrase would have worked, since it was Lance who was pulling at his shoulder and saying it, but it didn't. Not this time.

"No!" he shouted, and pointed at Laura, who looked now as though she was wishing the rain would wash her out to sea. "We're not leaving until you fucking apologize!"

"Keith," Lance said, and the softest of it was so ridiculously at odds with the tension between Keith and Laura that Keith was forced to break eye contact with her. He looked at the water instead. At the roll of a wave, at a shedded palm frond as it tried to escape the shore and was continually pushed back. Gently. Ceaselessly. "She doesn't have to apologize," Lance explained, and Keith was pretty sure he was talking to Laura more than he was talking to Keith. "I understand how she feels. Besides, she's always been a bit of a hothead, like you. But I know she loves me. And she knows I love her. No fight will ever change that, so this is... okay. We'll come back," he called out, and turned away, pulling Keith along with him. "We _will_." Almost like he was trying to convince himself of it more than anyone else.

"Jeez," Steven said behind them. "Go to flight school, get abducted by little green men, become a wise jedi. Check, check, and check. Aw, come on Laura," he ended on a more serious note. "Swallow your pride."

A moment later, Lance's hand was torn off Keith's arm as a body barrelled into him. Lance barely caught Rufio before dropping him into the mud. "I'm sorry," Laura was saying. "I'm still angry but I love you, and you're right, and Keith was right. I want to go with you but I can't make you take me. Just be _careful_ , please."

"I always am," Lance shot back. "Trust me, it's _Keith_ you need to warn about being careful. And listen, Laura, I was serious about needing you here. Look at me." He took her face in his hands and gave her his most serious face. His Leader Face. Somehow, with water cascading down it, it held all the more weight and intensity. "From the sound of it, you know more about the truth that anyone in Cuba, and now with my comm you'll know more than anyone else on Earth. This planet needs that if it's going to survive. They need you, the same way the universe needs me. _That's_ why you can't come with me."

Awe and understanding filled Laura's eyes, followed swiftly by admiration. Then, finally, pride. " _No te defraudaré_ _, hermano."_

"I know," Lance grinned.

"And you," Laura switched gears, turning to Keith, who jumped at being directly addressed again and went into fight-or-flight mode. "You be careful, _Rojo_. I'm starting to like you. You better still be around next time Lance comes back or I'm gonna have to kick your dead ass, okay?"

Nodding solemnly, Keith shook Laura's hand, and when he pulled away Lance was eyeing him doggedly as Steven clung onto him and hissing a string of inaudible words into his ear. "Yeah yeah," Lance hissed back. "Ifㅡ _ifㅡ_ that ever happens we'll have it here, okay? Shut up already."

"Pfft. 'If.' And I call best mㅡ"

Lance yanked him into a headlock. "I said shut _up,_ and you'll have to split that with Hunk. Sorry."

Steven wriggled free just as swiftly as he'd been caught ruffled Lance's hair up with affection. "What? _Share you?_ Gee, I've never had to do that before. Now, how did the saying go? Kick ass, go to space..."

"Represent the human race." The words just sort of fell out, and Keith blinked when the other three turned to stare at him with shock and amusement written across their faces. "What?"

"On that note," Lance grinned, "we ride."

The interior of Blue's jaw was still littered with the pieces of their armor, and they took a few minutes in the warm interior just out of reach of the pelting rain to strip most of their soaking wet clothes in favor of their dry flight suits. Then they geared up. Once their paladin armor was on they may as well have been on an alien beach a hundred galaxies away with the effect it had on the atmosphere between them. As they left the entrance to head up to cockpit, bags and helmets in tow, Lance threw one last look over his shoulder at the two figures silhouetted by the sea. Even though there was no way they could see the gesture through the haze of rain that divided them, he gave one last sorrowful wave.

As they made their way up, Keith's insides squirmed uncomfortably. It wasn't any of the familiar breeds of discomfort he'd been feeling for the last two days either. It was different. He had no idea what it was, but he was missing something crucial. It felt like he'd missed a step somewhere.

It was something Keith couldn't quite put his finger on, and it had been bothering him from the very instant Lance said ' _Keith'_ down on the shore in the rain with that agonizingly soft voice. From the instant Lance wasn't mad at Laura, when he should have been. God, he should have been. But he wasn't.

What did that _mean?_

Did it make Lance more mature than Keith? That he could walk away from Earth with spats left unsolved, claiming with such confidence that it didn't change his relationship with his sister? That he could just trust it to be okay?

Did it make Lance stronger than him? Did it make Keith weak?

All along Keith thought _he_ was the strong one for resisting thisㅡthis thing between them, while Lance was the weak one for throwing his hands up and trust-falling into the abyss. But now? That notion was tipping. Capsizing. He swam after it anyway, because he didn't know what the hell else would keep him afloat if not that.

"...Keith? Buddy?"

Lance's honey-smooth voice trickled in at his peripherals from a thousand light years away. Keith realized he was standing at the back of the cockpit now with the backpack full of food samples still slung over one shoulder, and Lance was standing just behind the pilot's seat, waiting on something. Waiting on him? How long had he been zoned out, standing here, questioning his entire existence?

Clearing his throat, Lance tried once more. "I said I hate to ask, but do you think you could hold onto Rufio until we get back to the castleship?" He held the fish jar out between them like it was made of the finest, most priceless porcelain, his brows furrowing as he made his plea. "You're not supposed to shake fish too much, so I don't want to set him down. Turbulence, and all that. Would you mind?"

And Keith just stared as that 'something' clicked into place.

He stared and _stared_ like Lance had just cut his own heart out and asked Keith to hang onto it, because that was what he had done. With stupid, foolish awe Keith raked his eyes over Lance's fingers where they gripped the jarㅡso carefullyㅡand drew in a single shuddering breath while the understanding crashed over him all at once, _finally_ , wave after wave. He got it now. He _got it_ ; what Lance was trying to say at the beach last night as they laid together on the moonlit shore. What he was trying to say on the beach not five minutes ago. What he meant when he handed his comm to Lauraㅡhow he was really handing _the family_ to Laura, how he was entrusting to her Earth, and home, and how when Laura demanded Keith's safety she was somehow demanding Lance's in tandem. How when Gabi handed Rufio to her brother she was really handing him herself, and how when Lance asked Keith to hold this fish, he was asking Keith to hold _Gabi_.

 _It meant something that he brought you home with him._

When Jocelyn spoke, Keith had caught onto her implication, but it was more stumbling on a shape in the dark than true understanding. Like a brushing his ankle on a fish in the deep. But now he knew. He saw what it meant. Saw how Lance hadn't brought Keith anywhere at all, or given him to anyone. He had given _them_ to _Keith_ ; passed them over like a fish in a jar, committed them to his care. To watch, to keep, to love. Had passed his heart over too on that beach on a silver platter, no strings attached, no holds barred, because why the hell not. He'd been trying to for months. Ten months, in fact. Ever since Taulderin. Fucking _Taulderin_.

And Keith, like the idiot he was, thought he could just pass it back and that would be that.

'That' was _never '_ that' with Lance.

"Um." The jar drooped an inch as Lance's eyebrows scrunched together at him in concern. "You okay? You don't have to hold it ifㅡmph!"

Lance stumbled back as Keith plowed into him without warning, their lips nearly missing each other, catching himself with one arm on his pilot's chair, the other curling protectively around Rufio's jar, tucking it to one side as their chestplates scraped together. It was a messy, disjointed kiss with their clunky paladin armor in the way. But Keith pushed closer anyway. More lips. More breath. More armor scraping armor. It wasn't like the beach at all and he couldn't directly feel Lance's skin or hair with his gloves in the way, but that was okay, because next time. Next time. And besides, the way it felt when _Lance's_ glove brushed at his cheek to push his wet hair away from his eyes was… just, wow. The way their noses smushed together almost killed him.

The ravenous shine to Lance's eyes as Keith pulled away could have melted steel beams; the phosphorous lights from Blue's interior shone back from the very back of Lance's retinas, changing shape as Lance tried to follow after, burning everything in his wake.

But instead of sinking back into the kiss, Keith swallowed thickly and said, "You're wrong. What you said last nightㅡor, this morning. On the beach. When we…" Keith faltered at the adorable confusion on Lance's face. The lingering shock mixed with unfiltered happiness. "I do trust you," he said with conviction, and plucked the jar from Lance's grasp. "I trust you, Lance. I've just never…"

"What?" A cocky selfsure grin came over him. "Dated anyone? Somehow, I think I can live with that."

"No," Keith huffed. "For fuck's sake, how do you _do it?_ "

Lance blinked. The confusion was back at full capacity. "Do what?"

 _Do what, do what,_ as if he didn't know. "Wear your heart outside your body like that! How do you even function when you've got fifty different pieces of yourself scattered all over the universe, in places where you couldn't possibly protect them?" Keith knew he should stop, that it was a sore spot with them leaving Varadero six days ahead of schedule, but he couldn't. "I mean wouldn't it be easierㅡsaferㅡif you just," he was speaking in a hoarse whisper now and he should stop talking, he really should, "just _didn't?"_

Keith hated the look Lance was giving him now. Hated that it looked suspiciously like pity. "Ahhh. Okay. I see the problem now."

"No you don't," Keith snapped.

"Yeah. I do. This is about Taulderin, isn't it? It always goes back to Taulderin. See, this is what happens when you go through something traumatic and then refuse to talk about it."

"We need to get back to the ship, Lance, we don't have time to talk about Taulㅡabout that." He almost jumped out of his skin when Lance seized his wrist and hauled him back across the cockpit, until their chest plates were colliding again with a soft _clack_ that echoed haltingly in the neon darkness. "It's crazy how opposite we are, isn't it? That you don't wanna be with me for the exact same reason that I wanna be with you. Normally that kind of dysfunction would be a dealbreaker. 'Never date a fixer-upper' my mama always warned, and I told her she wouldn't catch me dead. But heh, look at me now."

"Hey, _you're_ the fixer-upper!" Keith yelled, his voice cracking into an embarrassing register.

"Keith. Babe. Shut up and listen to me. You _really_ think it's gonna be easier on you if I were to die and we'd never given love a go than it would if we had?"

" _Give love a go,_ " he mocked, deftly covering his reaction to the part of that sentence that had actually gotten to him: the casually uttered _babe_. "Who says it like that?"

"You're stalling."

"Yes, okay? _Yes_. It would be way fucking easier and you can't deny that. Sue me for looking out for myself."

"Hh." Lance huffed the tiniest laugh before play-punching Keith in the chin. "Easier, sure. But since when have we ever been the sort to take Easy Street?"

"Was that a challenge?" The mischievous glint in Lance's eye gave him dead-away. _Oh my god, it totally was._ "Are you seriously _challenging_ me to date you?"

"That depends," Lance snickered. "Is it working?"

To Keith's everlasting fury, it was. But that didn't mean he was going to let Lance have this. "You don't need to challenge me. Ugh. I'm the one who kissed you this time, dumbass, or did you forget already?"

" _Forget?_ " Lance laughed, and then he was slipping out from between Keith and the chair to slide around to the front side of it. His hands flit across the controls with the ease of a long-honed skill, jumpstarting Blue to life. "Yeah right. I'll be remembering that on my deathbed. Hang on tight to my fish friend, mullet, we're goin' up."

And up they went.

Through the rain and the lightning and then the clouds, through the turbulent mesosphere, the thermosphere, the exosphere, and all too soon the Earth was curving away below them. The cradle of humanity was nothing more than one more island on the blackest, deepest sea. It struck Keith then that they weren't all that different from the sailors of old. Charting their courses with sextants and stars, roaming and roaming and sometimes, when the wind was right and the skies were clear, going home.

"Ha," Lance said, and when he pointed out the front dash Keith somehow knew the source of his amusement instantly. "Would you look at that. The castleship's off in the direction of the North Star."

Keith eyed the brightest object in their field of view; the tiny prick of white in a spiderweb of infinity. Thought about the four hundred-and-something light years between here and there, and how they'd travelled so much farther beyond here than that. Beyond anything any other human had before them. Together.

"You say that like it means something," Keith laughed.

Hands pushing the thrusters to max in his haste, Lance only shrugged. "Maybe it does."

In the direction of the star, a silver-blue speck loomed. Even as he spotted it the speck grew closer, and bigger all the while, swiftly growing into the familiar friendly shape of the Altean battleship. The castle. Keith curled his hand around the jar subconsciously, wondering whether Lance would need any help setting up the fish tank. Thinking about how beside themselves Hunk and Pidge and Shiro would be about the Earth food building blocks Lance's family had sent back with them, and how eager Allura and Coran would be to share in their culture. Considering what it would be like to kiss Lance goodbye before the incoming battle, and hello again after, and the next day good morning, and the next day, and the next. Considering that maybe the reward outweighed the risk after all.

Considering that maybe Lance was right. Maybe there _was_ no risk.

At least, not the kind of risk that mattered.

Keith crossed his free arm on the back of Lance's chair and leaned his cheek on it fondly, watching Polaris finally vanish beyond the northern wing of the still-growing castleship. "Yeah," was all he said. But some of his love must have slipped out with the word, because Lance's grip on the thrusters slackened, and he turned toward Keith with a question on his tongue. "Maybe it does," Keith hummed.

And the way Lance smiled, then, the way it broke over him and spread like an Arizona dawn, like Sonoran _wildfireㅡ_

ㅡhe knew Lance heard the undertone.

* * *

 **Spanish-English translations:**

"Familia de familia es famila." ㅡ "Family of family is family."

"No te defraudaré, hermano." ㅡ "I won't let you down, brother."


End file.
